


Background Noise

by Tsubaki94



Series: The Pro's and Con's of being Danny Phantom [10]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Coma, Doom, Epedemic, Gaming, Gen, School, Sleep, shit happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2018-12-25 15:25:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 30,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12038742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsubaki94/pseuds/Tsubaki94
Summary: Back to school once more, Lancer is teaching English and the class is falling asleep listening to him. As predicted Danny arrives late but there is more to the situation than one would think at first glance.People in white hazmat cooperating with the GIW takes over the school to try and solve the problem they think they are having whereas Danny and his friends battles the unseen enemy with their teacher at their side.





	1. Chapter 1

Monday morning, first school day of 2017. Mr Lancer was standing in front of his desk staring out at the half full classroom. Out of the 27 students that were in his English class there was only 12 present, all but Fenton had had their parents call in that morning saying the same thing, the flue.

The students that were staring back at him looked tired and bored, some like Baxter and his football friends hadn’t even bothered to pick up their notebooks and pencils. With a sigh Mr Lancer started reading the names on the class list jumping the once who had called in. Reaching F he glanced at his watch, “Fenton.” He said looking up from his list at the empty seat. “Late as always.” If he wasn’t skipping English all together that morning.

“Foley.” he called getting a grumbled answer, glancing up he saw the young teenager was using his English book as a pillow eye’s half open. The kid had probably been up all night every night during the holidays playing videogames, had Mr Lancer had the time he would have spent his every waking hour of the holiday playing as well.

Continuing on his list till he reached the end Mr Lancer put down the paper and took in the sight of the class once more. Starting the planned work on the history of the English language might have to wait till next week when more of the students were sure to come but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get this bunch a head start.

“Turn to page 394, we are going to start on the history of our English language, can anyone tell me where the language stems from?” Said Mr Lancer picking up his own book turning to the same page, his notes scratched in the margin.

As expected there was no one in the class who knew the origin of the language they were speaking. Hell for all he knew the students only knew half of the English they were speaking even after having him teach them for three years. He was about to ask another question when the door to the classroom opened and Fenton walked in.

“Take your seat Mr Fenton.” Sighed Lancer, picking up the list once more and marking the time the boy had arrived. When he looked up from the paper Fenton was still standing in front of him holding up a note to Mr Lancer.

Taking the piece of paper Mr Lancer took in the boys appearance. He was wearing baggy jeans and a red hoodie with the hood up, shoulders hunched face turned down. Fenton turned around and walked over to his seat beside Foley the moment Mr Lancer had taken the piece of paper from him.

Unfolding the note Lancer read the neatly written slightly tilting letters. It was signed Mrs M Fenton

Nodding Lancer put the note on his desk and looked back at the class, Manson was showing Fenton what page they were on, the students in the front were watching Mr Lancer with tired eyes, whereas the students in the back used their books as pillows scratching at their notebooks. “Can someone tell me what this section of text is?” Asked Lancer holding up his own book and pointing to a section that looked like a different language all together.

Manson’s hand rose in the air, as did one in the front and Fenton’s. Why not take the one who never raised his hand then. “Fenton.” Said Lancer watching as everyone lowered their hands.

Still with his hood up Fenton raised his eyes to look at Lancer, his face in shadows. “It’s middle English, right?” Always answering a question with a question, thought Lancer but there was a smile on his lips.

“Indeed, Mr Fenton, You don’t happen to know what the text is saying?” Asked Lancer expecting the boy to shake his head and answer in the negative.

But he didn’t, instead he squinted down on the page and read it out loud, slowly. Blinking Lancer turned the page to look at the translation he had written on a post-it note there and nodded. “That is correct Mr Fenton.” Said Lancer blinking down on the page for a moment at a loss of word.

Managing to pick thing up again Lancer never got back in to the normal flow. He was in the middle of drawing on the black board to explain how the English language had evolved when a loud bang made him stop. “Is my lecture boring you Mr Fenton.” Asked Lancer turning around to glare at his student.

Blue eyes met his. “It wasn’t me.” Said Danny pointing to his side where Foley’s head had fallen from where it had rested on his hand, to once more use the school book as a pillow.

Looking around the classroom Mr Lancer saw more students sleeping. “Yes sorry.” Clearing his throat Lancer looked back at his notes. “As I was saying, the English language can be tracked to…” The bell rang and Lancer sighed.

The bell was like always a signal for the students to wake up and put their things away. “Alright till Friday I want you all to have read the chapter about the origin of the English language.” Turning to the class Lancer blinked, only half the class was moving, the rest were still sleeping at their desks. “What is wrong with you people, the bell has been wrong and you are still sleeping.”

The students who were still awake looked at each other before they turned to the sleeping classmates. Lancer could see Fenton and Manson exchange bored looks before Sam handed Danny a water bottle which he shook before opening. He stared as Fenton emptied the bottle over his friends head and got no reaction from the geek.

Walking over to his other students Mr Lancer had just as much luck waking them as Fenton had waking Foley. “What is going on here.” Wondered Mr Lancer out loud.

There was a knock on the door and principal Ishiyama poked her head in. She took one look around before locking eye’s with Mr Lancer. “A word please.” She said dodging out in to the corridor again. Confused Mr Lancer walked out of the classroom joining the principle and some of his colleagues.


	2. Chapter 2

When Tucker’s head hit the table Danny had nearly jumped out of his skin, he was half asleep himself but Tucker was never the one to fall asleep during class, being too high on energy drinks. It had been annoying to have Lancer call him out but the look on the teachers face when he saw Danny was awake and staring at him made up for it.

When the school bell rang Danny shoved his book in to his bag and elbowed Tucker to wake him up. It didn’t work. “Hey Tuck, English is over.” He said shoving his friend again. Tucker didn’t so much as stir.

“I got the new Chillblast installed at home.” Said Sam trying to call to Tucker’s ever awake geek side with no luck.

Sighing Danny put down his bag and looked up at Sam. “You don’t happen to have a bottle of water?” he asked.

There was a glint in Sam’s eye when she dug her water bottle out of her backpack. “Watch his electronics or he is going to kill you when he wakes up.” Warned Sam.

Smiling lightly Danny shook the bottle pouring ice in to it till the water was as near freezing as it could be without turning in to ice. “Sorry about this… actually no, not sorry.” He mused emptying the water over Tuckers head and down his neck.

Nothing, not even a sigh. Tucker was apparently so deep in sleep that the shock of having ice water poured over his head didn’t even bother him. “Come on, not even I can sleep through that.” Said Danny exasperated, he put his hand on Tucker’s shoulder and gave a light zap from his ghost-ray. Tucker only took a deeper breath and continued sleeping.

“This can’t be good.” Said Sam turning Tucker’s head to the side and peeling up his eyelids behind the glasses. His eyes were rolled back, the pupils almost as large as the irises. She let go of Tucker and looked around the room, five more of their classmates were asleep the rest had left.

Following Sam’s gaze Danny nodded. “Ghost.” He said feeling pretty certain that a ghost was behind the sleeping students. “Bet it’s Nocturn.” Grumbled Danny taking a step back calling up the rings of light around him.

The door to the classroom opened making Danny spin around to face whoever was walking in the lights around him disappearing before he changed. Lancer walked in the rest of the students who had left as the bell rang coming in after him, walking back to their seats.

 

“No student is to leave their classroom unescorted by a teacher, Classes will be at a hold until the crisis is over. If you are feeling, tired, nauseous, dizzy, feverish…” Danny stopped listening to the speaker and leaned forward resting his head on his crossed arms yawning. Mr Lancer’s eyes were on him at once.

People in white hazmat suits had come in to the school, ordered everyone back to their classrooms and moved the sleeping students to the gym, recognizing the logo on their suits Danny hadn’t stopped them from taking Tucker. Had the people been from the GIW he would have protested but there was no need to start a fight with these guys. “Trouble concentrating or experiencing headaches, you are to inform your teacher at once and they’ll talk to the people in charge.” Finished the voice over the schools speaker system followed by a click.

“Quarantined.” Muttered Danny glancing out the window where large white Vans were pulling up in front of the school, people in hazmat suits jumping out of them to run around the school. “Reminds you of anything?” he asked glancing up at Sam.

“The time we all got the ghost bug and got moved to the creepy abandon hospital at the edge of town.” Said Sam scratching with her pen on her desk. “Hopefully things will not go that far this time.”

“You are unreasonably optimistic, things will likely go to hell and Phantom will be blamed for all of it.” Sighed Danny rubbing at his aching head.

Sam gripped his wrist and pulled his hand away from his face pushing back his hood. “Gezz what ghost smacked you in the face this morning?” she asked seeing the large bruise on the right side of his face.

Pulling the hood down Danny made a face. “It wasn’t a ghost.” He mumbled feeling a bit embarrassed at the whole thing.

Letting go of him Sam leaned forward staring him in the eye’s. “No you flew in to a building on your way to school again, or did you fall through the floor of your room.” She gave him a small smile. “Come on you are never embarrassed over your bruises what’s different with this one?”

Grumbling Danny turned away from Sam staring intently out the window where he saw the Fenton RV among the Vans. Either his parents were there to bother the people in charge or they were there in their professional capacity as scientists, or most likely his mom was, his dad was a nightmare around science equipment.

A hand grabbed the hood again and pulled it back. “I said I want to see your faces.” Grumbled Mr Lancer giving Danny a hard look. He hadn’t been listening to what the teacher was saying. “Now seeing as you have time on your hand I suggest you start with your homework, Manson stop drawing on the desk and pick up a note book instead.”

Lancer was about to turn away when his eye’s fell on the purpling bruise on Danny’s face. Raising an eyebrow Mr Lancer lowered his voice. “What happened to your face Fenton?”

Pulling his hood back up Danny hunched his shoulders. “Walked in to a door.” Mumbled Danny staring at a scratch in the desk between him and Lancer. The teachers were used to his short explanation to injuries by now and would often let it go, sending a note home informing his parents of the injury. Lancer wasn’t one of those teachers anymore.

Bending down to be on eyelevel with Danny he sighed. “Does this have something to do with the note you gave me earlier?” he asked in that annoying calm and understanding teacher voice.

“Obviously.” Growled Danny picking up his backpack and digging out the English book opening it, putting it up between him and the teacher.

Sighing Mr Lancer got up, he hesitated for a moment before walking back to his seat behind his desk at the front of the classroom. Turning to stare blankly at the words written in the book Danny let out a sigh. Sam poked him in the side drawing his attention to her, she stared at him with that annoying look expecting him to talk but letting him do it in his own time.

“Okay.” He finally said straightening. “I was literary sleepwalking when I got up this morning, so I didn’t hear dad in the bathroom before he slammed the door open and.” He waved at his bruised face. “They got all worried cus I wasn’t really sure of what happened seeing as I was practically asleep when it happened, I had to reassure them over and over again that I was fine and by then school had already started.”

“Aaa. You are embarrassed because it was your dad’s fault and you don’t want to end up in foster care again if it comes out that he hurt you.” Said Sam right to the point.

“Pretty much. I am just waiting for them to get obsessed over some new invention or ghost again so that they will go back to not noticing when I am around.” He rubbed at his temple, he wanted coffee, there hadn’t been any time that morning to get any and being stuck in the classroom now meant he wouldn’t get any caffeine if he didn’t ghost out unseen. And with Lancer’s eyes on him that was not going to happen.

“Wish I had parents who would ignore me from time to time. Mom actually tried to change out my wardrobe this weekend when I was at your place. Thankfully Grandma stopped her before she could throw out everything.” Sighed Sam, she had dug up her notebook and was drawing on the back of it.

“What made her do that?” Asked Danny listening with only one ear. His eye’s had landed on the next couple of cars that pulled up outside of the school and the men in white suites wearing black shades even on the dull winter morning.

“A TV-reportage about a lot of depressed kids expressing their problems in the way they dress. Something about, if your child dresses in all black and uses a lot of dark makeup it is a sign that she needs help. Mom thought that help was changing my color scheme.” She leaned forward to look out of the window as well.

“Next thing you know she might try and redecorate your room again.” Said Danny absently watching his mom and dad talk to the GIW agents. His dad was stiff his arms crossed in front of him and what Danny saw of his face was a clenched jaw, for once he wasn’t fangirling over the GIW but talked to them seriously. That was not good, when his dad was serious it meant that something was wrong on a personal level.

“Only took them an hour to figure out this was ghost related.” Said Sam checking her watch. “What do you think their next step is?”

The agents outside turned to a tent that had been erected outside, shortly followed by Danny’s mom, his dad walking back to the RV. “To bring in the leading expert in Ectobiology.” Danny had a sinking feeling in his stomach.


	3. Chapter 3

Almost half an hour went by without anything happening, other than the sports jocks starting a game of tick, tack, toe. Every time one of them shouted or they all cheered a throb of pain went through Danny’s head.

Having finally had enough Danny dug out his pair of Fenton Headphones from his bag and put them on efficiently cutting out all noise. With a sigh of relief Danny put his head down on the desk waiting for his head to stop throbbing.

When Sam elbowed him he shoved her back, not because he was angry, he just wanted some peace and quiet, preferably some alone time but fat chance for that. Sam gave him another shove. “What.” He growled pressing his forehead against the smooth wooden surface of his desk.

Minutes went by without anything happening, then a rubber gloved hand touched Danny’s and he nearly phased out of his seat, his head flying up to stare at the person who touched him. A person dressed in a blocky hazmat suit stood in front of him, her face hidden behind a layer of translucent plastic that reflected the light from the classroom lamps. Danny could see her lips move but because of the headphones he couldn’t hear.

Pushing back the headphones Danny looked around the classroom slightly confused. There were more people dressed in hazmat in front of his fellow classmates, talking to them and doing something with plastic instruments Danny couldn’t see.

“Hey, relax I know the hazmat is a bit scary but we are here to help.” Said the woman, her voice familiar, but Danny couldn’t place where he had heard it before.

Robbing at his eye’s Danny shook his head. “You surprised me that’s all.” He said glancing over at Sam who shrugged.

“I tried to talk to you but you didn’t want to listen.” She said. She was holding her left arm bent and scribbled on a piece of paper.

Danny’s mind was racing drawing conclusions that all ended badly for him. “It’s okay, did you hear anything we were saying before or do you want me to go over everything again?” Asked the woman she had a tray of instruments on the table in front of them. Danny could see needles, plastic sample bottles, a thermometer and a flashlight.

“Please do.” Said Danny shrinking away from the woman.

“It is nothing to worry about, we just need to do some test to see if this virus has infected any of you other students, and teachers.” She pointed with her thumb over her shoulder to where Lancer was sitting a person in white hazmat drawing blood from his arm as the teacher looked away. “We will test your blood mostly and check if you have any other symptoms. Like headache, fatigue, a fever and so on, is that alright?”

“I don’t do blood.” Grumbled Danny crossing his arms over his chest his childish stubbornness taking the better of him.

The corners of the woman’s lips turned up and she moved so Dany could see turquois eye’s glinting at him. “Okay let’s start with the easy part then, can I take your temperature?” She asked picking up the thermometer, similar to the one that was gathering dust in the bottom of Danny’s first aid kit.

He shrugged and let her put the thing to his ear, tempted to actually lower his body temperature just to mess with her. When the thing biped she looked at it and the corner of her mouth turned up. She was going to remark on his slightly lower core temperature, thought Danny.

Scribbling down a number on the pad in front of her she put the thermometer down and picked up a small flashlight. “I need to look at your throat and I am going to take a swab of the inside of your mouth.” She explained. “Can you open your mouth?”

He did staring intently at her as she worked. When she was done she put it in a plastic tube and labeled it. “Alright can you tell me if you are feeling, tired, have a headache or feeling dizzy?”

Giving her a raised eyebrow Danny glanced at Sam who yawned. “I think everyone is tired or bored, so that’s a stupid question. Got a headache but.” He pointed to the bruise on the side of his face. “This is kind of the reason, and for your last question no.”

Chuckling the woman crossed her arms in front of her. “That is true. So you are feeling fine, that’s good.” Nodding Danny glanced around at his classmates, all of them were complying with what the person in hazmat was saying, it was only he who wasn’t.

Turning his eye’s back on the woman in front of him Danny sort of felt stupid. It was only a blood sample, the doctor had taken one not long ago and no one had freaked out over it, so maybe his blood wasn’t that different as he thought it was. For all he knew the physical changes he’d gone through after the accident stopped at the fangs. “You are waiting for me to agree to the blood sample.” He sighed feeling like he was being manipulated by his sister in to doing something he didn’t want to.

“Yes.” She said her eye’s shifting to look at his left arm.

“What are you going to do with it?” Asked Danny pulling of his hoodie, he was wearing his old white and red t-shirt under it.

“Normal tests, check your white blood cell count, your blood oxygenation levels, glucose and screen for any ecto impurities.” Said the woman tying a rubber band around Danny’s biceps. She used a swab and some alcohol to clean a spot just above the crook of his elbow.

When she pulled out the needle Danny shied away biting his lower lip staring at the needle. “Tell you a secret Danny, you are right.” Said the woman drawing Danny’s and Sam’s attention to her face that was once more obscured by the classrooms lights.

“Right about what?” Asked Danny, his mouth suddenly dry.

Her gloved hand gripped Danny’s elbow and she poked the needle in to his skin. “This isn’t just some virus.” She said taking the sample bottle and attaching it to the needle watching as it filled with Danny’s blood. “You should look in to Ember’s new music.”

“Uh…What are you talking about.” Danny was gripping the seat of his chair so hard by then his fingers were starting to cramp.

A crooked smile spread over her face. “Nocturn might be the one behind this but, he is using Ember.” She pulled out the needle and put a band aid over the small dot on Danny’s skin before removing the rubber band. Putting everything back on her tray she got up. “Oh and finish the game before it’s over.” She said and then turned around to join the rest of her co-workers as they walked out of the classroom.

Both Sam and Danny stared after her confused. “How did she know about Nocturn and Ember?” asked Danny absently rubbing the band aid on his arm.

“She might have been a GIW agent.” Said Sam turning to Danny. “You let her take your blood.” Her words were tense as she stared at Danny.

“It’ll probably be nothing, besides I can just blame any traces of ectoplasm in my blood on the whole ghost thing.” Digging in his pockets Danny brought out his phone, he had finally gotten a new one and had made sure to get a thick protective case for it so it would at least last a month.

“What are you doing?” asked Sam. “Shouldn’t you be freaking out about this blood thing and sneak out of here to stop her?” She said leaning over closer to watch the screen on his phone.

“Worry about that later, something that woman said rang a bell.” Opening a web browser Danny typed in Embers name and got a hit. But it was only her old hit and after some more searching Sam joined him using her phone to type in different variations of what they wanted.

“Try iTunes and I’ll try Spotify.” Said Sam opening the app in her phone.

“Tried that already. I’m going to try Pirate Bay.” Sighed Danny. “And maybe I’ll get a hit before the school closes down my access to the school Wi-Fi.”

“When Tucker wakes up we’ll make him restore it. Did you find anything.” Sam’s search hadn’t yielded any results.

“Maybe, I’m downloading the track now.” The file downloaded and Danny opened it in a music app. At first he didn’t think he heard anything and pulled up the volume closing his eye’s to listen. It began slowly raising in volume till an electric guitar broke the soft melodically tones making it more upbeat with drums.

“It sort of sounds like Embers music, but-“ A loud bang from the front of the classroom made them all jump.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright so because I have to put some efort in to my studies I will post only two chapters a week, one on Tuesdays and one on Saturdays. Also I have done illustrations for the chapters that are up I just have to scan them first.


	4. Chapter 4

Squeezing his phone hard Danny looked startled up at the front desk where Mr Lancer had been sitting. The teacher was now lying motionless on the floor his eyes closed. The only one of the hazmat dressed persons who hadn’t left the room hurried over to Lancer calling his name.

Apparently the person had a radio under the suit, Danny could see him press something square on his shoulder and a moment later three more hazmat dressed people came in to the room. Everyone was staring at the scene in front of them, everyone except for Sam who tugged at Danny’s sleeve. “Let’s get out of here before anyone notice us.” She hissed.

Nodding Danny backed out of his seat, the music on his phone picked up again and suddenly his head felt like the guitar was trying to split it open. Stumbling Danny fell back in to the desk behind him, pressing his hands against the side of his head, the phone falling to the floor with a clatter and the music stopped.

“Shit Danny, you alright?” Asked Sam bending down.

“Mother f-ing migraine.” Growled Danny his head throbbing in time with his pulse.

A heavy booted man in white hazmat came over to them. “Is everything alright?” he asked, his voice was soft and Danny tasted concern.

“Yeah, my friend is just clumsy. Is Mr Lancer alright? Did he also catch this thing that has you all here?” Asked Sam trying to draw the attention away from Danny.

“We can’t say at the moment.” He said eyeing Danny who rubbed at his temples trying to get the headache to go down a bit. “If your friend isn’t feeling well he should come with us.”

Making a face Danny got to his feet’s. “No I’m fine, just clumsy as Sam said.” The man rose from where he’d been crouching in front of Danny, to tower over him now.

“Okay, but if you fall again you should tell your teacher.” He glanced back to where his co-workers were putting Lancer on a stretcher. “There will be someone here to replace your teacher in a moment.” He looked Danny up and down one final time before returning to his co-workers.

“Well that escape went well clots. What happened?” asked Sam as the two sat down at their desks once more.

Bending down, Danny picked up both his phone and backpack putting them on the desk. “Migraine thought it would stop at some point but it’s only getting worse.” He dug around in his bag and brought out a bottle of aspirin. Opening it he put three in his hand and dry-swallowed then.

“How many painkillers have you taken.” Asked Sam hearing the empty sound of the bottle as Danny put it back in to his bag.

He shrugged. “The headaches haven’t really lessened sense I used the duplication power every day when I was in Wishing Hill.”

“Maybe you should let yourself rest, you’ve been out fighting ghosts nonstop like always.” Sam said it in that way that meant well but was still annoying for being said so many times before.

“I’ll rest when I’m dead.” Grumbled Danny earning him a punch on the shoulder from her, it didn’t hurt but he played the part. “Aw, shouldn’t we be thinking of a way for us to get out of here unnoticed, we should figure out what’s up with this music. You know if Ember hid some secret message in it again or something.”

Sam rolled her eye’s. “That was what I was thinking when you tripped and everyone’s attention was on us. Got any other great plans.” She was clearly annoyed with him.

Shaking his head Danny leaned forward resting it on his crossed arms. The jocks at the back of the classroom had started their game again their loud voices booming in Danny’s sensitive ears. He turned to glare at Dash and his friends as the new teacher Mr Peabody walked in.

An idea hit him then and turning back to his bag Danny pulled out his notebook and a pen. “You going to start doing homework now or something?” asked Sam watching Danny wright.

He huffed. “No, I am going to get Dash to help us.” He read what he had written before tearing the page out of the book and started folding it. When he had a plane he turned toward Dash and with the ease of practice sent it flying across the classroom to land on Dash’s desk.

They turned away from Dash and his friends before they could see them watching. After all Dash didn’t want his and Danny’s relationship to be known to them so there was no need to endanger it more than he already did by sending the note. “What did you wright?” asked Sam.

“I asked him to help me cause a distraction so you could get out and get Phantom the music.” Said Danny watching as the plane came sailing back to him.

Unfolding it he read Dash’s answer. Chewing on the back of his pen Danny thought of an answer. Folding the plane once more he sent it back.

“Are you seriously starting a fight with Dash?” Asked Sam staring at the plane sailing over to land beside Dash.

“Yeah I am, get your stuff and I’ll find you later.” Whispered Danny.

He saw Sam hesitate for a moment before she nodded. “I’ll be in the computer room fiddling with this on the computer.” She said picking up Danny’s phone. She wasn’t a tec expert like Tucker but when it came to music she knew her stuff.

Dash’s eye’s met Danny’s, he looked slightly confused but nodded. Picking up his pen Danny flipped it in the air a couple of times as if he was bored. On his fifth flip he fumbled it and the pen fell to the floor and rolled over to where Dash and his friends were sitting.

Thinking he was going to regret doing it later Danny got up and walked over to where the pen lay. He bent down to pick it up. An elbow came swinging in to his vision and he flinched, the hit hardly connecting at all. “Watch it Fen-turd.” Said Dash and the rest of his friends laughed with him.

“I am just getting my pen.” Sighed Danny avoiding eye contact with any of the bullies. Not all of them were bullies, but they never tried to stop any of their friends when they picked on someone smaller.

“Sure here you go.” Dash picked up the pen and flicked it at Danny’s face making him flinch back again. “What’s the matter scared of your own pen.” Laughed Dash flipping the pen up in the air.

Danny reached to grab for it but Dash was taller than him and caught the pen first. “Come on Dash give me the dam thing.” Sighed Danny watching as Dash flipped it up in the air again.

“I’m not stopping you.” The rest of the group laughed, enjoying the show. Meeting Dash’s eye’s he gave the jock a nod before he jumped up on an empty chair and caught the pen before Dash could. Only Dash fucked up his landing by kicking Danny’s legs out from under him.

Reflexively Danny flung out his hands to break his fall, and kicked out hitting Dash’s foot making the jock stumble before catching his balance. “You are going to pay for that Fentonia.” Growled Dash and in an all too familiar manner got a fistful of Danny’s shirt.

Letting the first strike hit him was a calculated risk, letting Dash hit him in the face just showed how bad he was at math. Stars exploded in front of his eye’s and he flung up his arms to protect himself, feeling the knuckles on his right hand clip Dash’s jaw.

Snarling another insult Dash smashed his fist in to Danny’s forearms. He could hear the teacher shouting at them to break up, asking the onlookers to help him but no one wanted to get between Dash and his pray.

Taking another set of punches Danny twisted around in Dash’s grip and managed to get his leg up and around Dash’s neck, pulling them both down to the floor where he let go of Dash before it looked like he was winning the fight. The teacher was at the door calling for assistance, Sam was no longer in the room.

The onlookers cheered on Dash as he tried to wrestle Danny but found that the scrawny teen he used to bully was slippery. It wasn’t before Peabody and Ms Tetslaff got between them that the onlookers suddenly found it a lot more interesting to read their English book rather than to watch the fight.

“That’s it break it up you two.” Growled Tetslaff her hands around Dash’s shoulders pulling him away from Danny. Peabody tried to pull Danny away from the fight but found that he wasn’t dealing with some scrawny teenager who was only skin and bone.

His head throbbing Danny closed his eyes, red spots danced on the inside of his eyelid. He dug his nails in to the palms of his hands forcing back the rage that had built up in side of him. It wasn’t a real fight, he’d asked Dash to start it, he hadn’t meant anything he said, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for being a day late with this chapter, I spent 7hours in a car yesterday and was to tired to do anything when I had stable internet again. So here's the chapter hope you like it, as always feel free to comment.


	5. Chapter 5

Danny and Dash was both sitting outside the principal’s office a pack of ice each held against their jaw. Danny’s unintended hit on Dash face had left a nice bruise that was swelling up, Dash’s hit to Danny’s face had as always split his lip, he had started to wonder if the skin there was weaker after having been split so many times.

The secretary sitting outside the office had her head in a magazine and looked bored, Danny could see that she had pulled out the phone cable to stop it from ringing. “So why did you want me to start the fight?” Asked Dash taking the ice pack away from his face to poke at the purpling bruise.

“Needed a distraction.” Sighed Danny licking the blood of his lip. “Did you have to hit my face.”

Shrugging Dash put the ice pack back. “Had to make it look real, be glad I didn’t hit you on the side, that bruise looks painful as is.” Danny felt the corner of his mouth turn up. “Where did your goth friend run of to?”

“She had something she needed to take care of. Thanks for the distraction.” Danny sucked on his lower lip licking the cut.

“Don’t mention it.” Dash turned to look at him. “But seriously what was that move you pulled, I thought I had you pinned and suddenly you pull us both to the ground. How did you do that.”

Moving the ice pack from his jaw to the bruised side of his face Danny gave Dash a smug smile. “Martial arts. Mom taught me last year so I could defend myself in a fight. And so Jazz could have a sparring partner.”

Blinking at Danny it seemed to take Dash a couple of minutes to compute what he’d had just said. “So… wait why haven’t you stopped me from beating you up before?”

Rolling his eyes Danny slouched lower in his plastic chair. “If I fought back wouldn’t you keep hitting me harder. Like that one time.” Yeah the last time they fought in school Dash had ended up going to the hospital.

“Um… Maybe… Yeah okay I would hit you more if you fought back, but you didn’t even protect yourself.” Argued Dash.

“The less I fought back the faster you’d lose interest. Or that’s what Jazz been telling everyone.” Water ran along the side of the ice pack tickling Danny’s skin. He froze it without a second thought. “Besides I don’t want to hurt you.”

Narrowing his eyes at Danny Dash seemed to try and figure something out. Danny could see his eye’s moving from the bruise on the side of his face to the red scar that was visible at the neckline of his shirt to the split lip, his callused hands and the wiry muscles under his skin. “You know we still haven’t had that arm-wrestle.” He noted.

Shaking his head Danny closed his eyes. “Next time we are at the library.” He sighed.

The door to principal Ishiyama office opened and Ms Tetslaff walked out. “Baxter, Fenton you can go in.” She said holding the door open for them. Dash walked in first followed by Danny who narrowly avoided having his heals hit when Tetslaff closed the door.

Inside Ishiyama was sitting behind her desk, Mr Peabody beside her, the room looked a lot like Lancers only there wasn’t any fake photos of a sister that didn’t exist instead there were photos of honor students hanging along one wall, ending with a photo of Jazz. “Please take a seat you two.” Said the principal leaning forward to put her elbows on the table, steeping her fingers in front of her.

The two sat down, Danny licked his lip again, a taste of disappointment mixed with the salty taste of his blood. “Do you want to tell me what happened, or should I go with the story Mr Peabody told me?” She asked. Danny knew she wouldn’t believe them if they told her nothing happened, she had already made up her mind.

“Dropped my pen.” Said Danny staring on the sign that red Principal Ishiyama, at the front of the desk.

“Did not see him when I stretched.” Said Dash he had that look on his face as if nothing could touch him.

“Then how did you get the bruise on your face and why did Mr Peabody and Ms Tetslaff have to pull the two of you off each other.” Asked Ishiyama.

“Wow you make that sound dirty.” Muttered Danny. He saw the principal’s face turn a shade redder.

“You know what we are talking about Fenton. The two of you were wrestling on the floor trying to beat each other up.” Said Peabody hotly.

“That sounds even worse. What I remember was that I tripped, Dash tried to stop me from falling and ended up falling to the floor to, right?” Danny glanced over at Dash who’s ears were practically glowing of embarrassment. Maybe he took it to far with the misinterpretations.

“Yeah right.” Agreed Dash glaring at Danny. Yeah he had definitely gone too far, time to slow down and take whatever punishment the principal deemed necessary.

“Don’t try that crap Fenton, how will you explain the bruises on your arms, I saw you fight.” Peabody wasn’t going to let this go.

“Fell down.” Said Danny slouching down in the uncomfortable chair licking his lip again. The teacher turned to Dash who shrugged. “Fell down.” He repeated.

Peabody was about to speak again when Ishiyama sighed. “Mr Peabody, there is nothing more you can say.” She stared intently at the two. “As for your punishment, I think you both needs to see a counselor-“

“Already got one.” Interrupted Dash. “Seeing a shrink already.” Said Danny at the same time as Dash. The two exchanged a look before Ishiyama cleared her throat drawing their attention back to her.

“In that case, you will both get detention, this Saturday two hours each.” She pulled out a drawer and fished out a pink detention slip pad. She wrote on two before handing one to each of them. “And I’ll be informing your parents of this as well.” She stared at them for a moment as both read their detention slips. “If there is nothing else, Mr Peabody will escort you back to your classroom. I have a nightmare to take care of in the gym.”

Danny and Dash didn’t argue they both pocketed their detention slips and walked out of the office followed by Peabody. “Alright you two back to the classroom.” He said in a dry and bored tone.

They walked along the empty corridors heading for the English classroom. “So you are seeing a psychiatrist?” asked Dash. “Why?”

Shrugging Danny pulled his arm out as they were passing a vending machine. “Similar reason to you I expect.” He turned to face Dash, getting Peabody in his peripheral vision. The man was staring intently at them. “Family problem.” Said Danny.

Making a face Dash nodded. “You aren’t going to tell anyone?” he asked hard eyes on Danny.

Opening a can of Redbull Danny shook his head. “Not if you don’t.” he said bringing the can up to his lips and sipping at the sickly sweet liquid. “Oh god that’s disgusting.” He shivered.

“Then why are you drinking it?” Dash blinked. “Hey where did you get that from?” he asked. Danny pointed at the vending machine behind them.

They reached the classroom in time to meet two men in white hazmat, the GIW symbol on their shoulders, the shades still on. “Mr Emery Peabody, Daniel Fenton?” asked the shorter of the two.

“Yes.” Said Peabody stepping up to stand beside Danny. “Can I help you?”

“We need the two of you to come with us, you young man can go back to class.” Said the short man again, clearly being the talker among the two.

Dash gave Danny a quick glance before going in to the classroom. “Can I ask what this is about?” Asked Peabody crossing his arms over his chest.

“It’s procedure, please come along.” Said the short man again taking a step to the side pointing with his whole arm in which direction he wanted them to go.

His stomach turning in to knots Danny finished his Redbull and tossed it in to a trashcan as they walked down the corridor, flanked by the GIW agents. Whatever was happening it had a sour taste.


	6. Chapter 6

Ectoplasm, Maddie had run half the test but there was no denying it. The small grain of green sand that had been in the sleeping kid’s eyes were ectoplasm, solid with perfect hexagon facets and it was emitting a low frequency ghost signature that she had never seen before. There was no denying that this was what had caused the children to fall asleep and kept them from waking up even when it should be impossible.

Maddie was completely absorbed in her work, she had never seen ectoplasm completely solid, it was either in a thick liquid form or a gas like substance. The fact that she could detect the faint ghost signature probably had something to do with it, the ghost must still have control over even such a small piece of its ectoplasm. “Fascinating.” She said not for the first time as another test in dissolving the grain of sand in acid resulted in a puff of purple smoke leaving the thing completely intact.

Writing in her notebook she wished Jack was there so she could tell him of her findings. He would be over the moon with the research. She was over the moon with the chance she had at advancing her scientific research in to ectoplasmic entities and how they managed to control their ectoplasm to create physical form. She had to thank Angela Foley for calling her that morning, all thou the circumstances could have been better.

It had been a quarter past nine, she had just cleaned up the last of her husbands failed invention and was just sitting down to drink her coffee when the phone had rang. Getting up she had taken one look at the display before she answered. “Hallo Maddie here.” She said sipping her coffee.

“Thank god you picked up, I didn’t know who else to call. Maurice is on a business trip and hasn’t answered his phone so when the school called and said Tucker was sick and they’ve called the CDC I just had to talk to someone.” The normally calm woman sounded like she was on the edge of tears.

“Angela slow down, what are you talking about?” Asked Maddie, her imagination treating her to images of the school covered in a white tent and men in hazmat standing guard outside. No she was being silly that was not how it went, if there was an outbreak of some unknown virus then the school would be on lockdown and the CDC would put up containment measures inside the building as well as outside it.

She heard the woman on the other end of the line take a deep breath and calm herself. “The school called five minutes ago, they said Tucker fell asleep in class and that they haven’t been able to wake him or any of the other students that fell asleep. They think it could be some virus and the school nurse called the District helth something who called the CDC, they asked us not to worry, said they are doing everything they can but, Maddie I need to do something my child is sick.”

A lump settled in Maddie’s throat, she knew the worry and helplessness the woman was feeling. She had felt the exact same thing when Danny had been taken from her, when she had only got to hug him for a brief moment after he’d been in that mall attack and then he’d left with some complete stranger. Angela had come over to her that evening after she had made sure her son was alright to find Maddie not for the first time cleaning the house. It was hard to do nothing when the child she loved was in danger or hurting, Angela needed someone to talk to, someone who could help her and Maddie was apparently that person.

A thought struck her and she fished up her phone from her pocket checking if there was any missed calls. There wasn’t, her thumb hovered over the text-messenger icon for a moment before she shook her head and put down the phone again. If Danny had gotten sick to the school would have called her and messaging him would annoy him even more, she had to give him his space. “Angela I need you to tell me everything the school told you.” She had said.

Ten minutes later both she and Jack had gone to the school where as predicted not only the white vans belonging to the CDC was parked outside but the parents to the students were all gathering outside like a mob. A liaison was doing his best to calm the parents down and give them what information he could. Maddie and Jack listened for a moment before she caught sight of a person who looked like he could answer her questions better.

Leaving the crowd of gathered parents Maddie made a B-line for the man who wore a white hazmat suit, with the bird like logo on the shoulder. He hadn’t put on the hood yet so Maddie could see his full face, he had a small toothbrush mustache and his hair was thinning, but what hair he got was long and pulled up in to a ponytail that shook as he gave out instructions. “Excuse me are you in charge?” Asked Maddie.

The man glanced at her. “Yes but all your questions will have to go through Matt, I’m to busy containing this.” Grumbled the man before snapping his fingers at one person carrying a large container.

“Indeed, I have just one question for you. Is this a normal virus or is it ecto-based?” She asked putting her hands on her hips.

Glancing at her the man made a face. “Woman what are you talking about?” He asked before whistling at another person snapping his fingers in the direction of the gym building.

Clearing her throat Maddie assumed the role of an expert in her field. “You are in Amity Park sir, all the students in this school has been the target of ghost viruses and infections before, the first thing you people should do is look for any form of ectoplasmic based components in the sick children. If there is then your normal scientific methods of curing or preventing diseases won’t work:”

Sighing the man gave her a skeptical look. “Who are you again?”

“Dr Madeline Fenton, ecto-biologist, scientist and ghost hunter. Now I can give your people a list of things to look for in blood samples that will tell you if there is any form of ecto-contaminants in the body, or you can do nothing and the children might never wake up.” She held her head high, she was on eyelevel with the man but looking meek and spineless wasn’t going to help her, besides it wasn’t her way.

It took a bit more convincing before the man did as she'd asked, when the results from the first test came back he was there to inform her and ask her for her expert help. Not a moment too soon, the GIW cars pulled up and the agents started rolling over the CDC people. One thing led to another that finally landed Maddie in the schools chem-lab with all the new equipment she needed to do her work and an assistant to run her errands and help her in the lab.

She, unlike the other people, wore her blue hazmat suit, it had long ago been insulated to protect from any virus, the only thing she had to do was put up her hood, wear her googles and put on an oxygen mask that covered half her face and connected it to an air-supply filtration in her belt, leaving her far more mobile and comfortable than any of the other.

Everyone was doing their job, nurses and doctors were looking after the sleeping children, monitoring them closely, noting down any changes, taking readings of their brain-activity, that didn’t match their apparent sleep like state. Scientists were like Maddie in different rooms trying to figure out what was causing the children’s abnormal sleep. And GIW agents were hovering over their shoulders, “guarding” the corridors and classrooms and generally questioning their every action.

Sliding her next slide in to the microscope, Maddie stared at the monitor, watching the highly corrosive acid eat away at everything but the green grain of sand. “Um Dr Fenton.” Said a meek sounding voice behind her.

Letting out a sigh Maddie turned to face her assistant, London. The woman was just as tall as she was, but her stance was one of submission, her head was lowered and the light often obscured her face. She was holding a couple of folders against her chest. “The blood tests that were done on the other students are back and the GIW agents have taken these to a separate quarantine.” She handed the folders to Maddie.

“Good.” Taking the folders Maddie glanced at the top one before putting them to the side. Taking out the ruined slide and putting it on a tray. “Bring me a hammer.” She said picking out a new grain of ectoplasmic sand putting it on a metal tray.

“Here you go.” London handed her a hammer and stood back. Weighing the tool in her hand Maddie’s eyes narrowed on the small grain. She gave it a decisive tap.

The hammer was ripped from her hand, to fly up and lodge itself in the ceiling. “Interesting.” Said Maddie shaking her hand. Her fingers tingling slightly at the harsh movement when the hammer was ripped from her hand. She pulled down a magnifying lens and stared at the sand. “It is still intact, I wonder what it’ll take to break this.” She looked over her shoulder at the vials and bikers holding the failed results of her attempts to break the sand down and analyses its composition in more detail.

“Um Dr Fenton I think you’d want to look at those files.” Said London staring at the hammer in the ceiling.

“No I have to keep going, I’m sure the reason for the children’s condition is in this sand, I just have to find out what dissolves it or breaks it then we can start figure out how to wake them up. Maybe we have to see why the sand is in their eyes.” Maddie’s thoughts trailed of.

“Maybe it got something to do with the optic nerve, or maybe the sand is a byproduct of the ecto-virus in the children. But I really think you should look at the files, knowing what the early symptoms looks like can help finding the cause.” Maddie turned to look at London, what the young woman said sounded logical.

Shaking her head Maddie picked up the files and pulled up a chair, standing bent over beakers and microscope wasn’t good for her back. She glanced at the first file, read the serial number 1171, which followed by the student’s name, Daniel J Fenton. Blinking Maddie read the name again.

Her stomach turning in to knots she opened the folder and read the report, her eyes stopping at redlined numbers. The white blood cell count was high, the red blood cell count low, he was low on sodium and potassium and there were the markers for ectoplasm in his blood. Biting her lower lip she flipped to the next page and scanned it, the only thing that stood out was his core temperature.

Cursing Maddie closed the folder and her eyes, taking slow breaths. When she opened her eyes again she put Danny’s file to the side and opened the next one. She flipped through the results till she had gone through them all only then did she pick up her son’s file again and look at it. They all had high white blood cell count, they all were low on electrolytes, almost everyone had a slight fever and there was clear traces of ectoplasm in their bloodstreams, which was why the GIW had quarantined them in another room.

“Dr Fenton?” Asked London, she sounded concerned and was holding herself at a distance. “I thought you should know.” She said.

Sighing Maddie nodded. “Yes, thank you for bringing me this.” She tapped a finger to the file thinking. Putting the files, except for two, on a table she dug out her phone from her pocket and started typing. When she had sent the message she got up and stretched. “Where are they keeping these children?” she asked waving at the files.

The corner of London’s mouth turned up. “Classroom 134. It’s down the corridor in a physics classroom.” She pointed in the direction.

“Good, can you do some test on this sand while I am gone, try and find something that will break it down, I want to analyze the chemical components, to figure out what it is doing to the children and why it is so hard to break.” Said Maddie walking to the door.

“Yes, m- Mrs Fenton.” Stuttered the young assistant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbh I am really tired right now and is working on the 13th story in the series right now so the art will come later, I have it made I just can't be asked to do it now.


	7. Chapter 7

The GIW agent Maddie had banished from her workspace stood outside the door and stopped her. “Ma’am where are you going?” He asked one hand outstretched in front of Maddie the other close to his hip where an ecto-gun was strapped to his suit.

Eyeing the man Maddie felt confident she could take him down if she had to. “Classroom 134, where you are keeping the possibly infected quarantined. Though considering that the whole school might be infected I can’t say that’s a good quarantine.”

Nodding the man pressed a button on the radio under his hazmat suit. “I need a replacement at room 142.” He said and a moment later a static voice answered in the affirmative. “If you would wait for a moment then I’ll escort you to the classroom. May I ask why you are going there?”

“You are monitoring those children more closely now that you’ve detected ecto-contaminants in their blood, I want to see for myself what you are doing and have a talk to my son.” She crossed her arms over the two files she held against her chest.

She could see the man’s brow furrow. “Your son?” he asked.

“Yes my son. Is there a problem with that?” She glared at the agent. The GIW was always difficult to deal with, they could sometimes be very logical and act almost like professionals, other times they had been known to act irrational or on false information.

“No ma’am, I will however remind you that you are here as a scientist not a parent.” He said his voice void of emotions.

“That’s why I haven’t been to see him yet, and it’s Dr to you.” A second GIW agent came up to them and Maddie started walking before they could stop her. The first agent caught up to her but stayed a step behind as she walked.

Reaching classroom 134 she found that two GIW agents were standing guard outside of the room. They made a fuss about who she was and what access clearance she had. She gave them an earful in responses to why she had access to everything going on and they let her in.

The classroom hadn’t changed much. There was a little over 20 students sitting at the long workbenches looking bored. People in white hazmat and with the GIW logo was walking among them, stopping in front of every student, asking questions, taking their temperature and pulse before walking over to the next student.

She saw Danny and Valerie in the very back of the classroom slouching down in their chairs and glaring at the two GIW agents in front of them a teacher trying to convince them to do what the agents wanted but the teenagers were stubborn.

Taking a deep breath Maddie walked through the classroom to where her son and his friend sat. “Like hell, last time you accused me of being a ghost you opened fired at me and Tucker, I am not doing anything you tell me.” Growled Danny showing teeth. Maddie blinked noticing the very sharp teeth’s, since when did her son have fangs, or had she just missed them?

“Kid this is serious things, we have to do these tests, there was ecto-contaminants in your blood and it’s likely you have the same virus as your other classmates.” Tried the bulkier of the agents.

Rolling his eyes Danny caught sight of his mom and his demeanor changed. “Mom.” He said, there was surprise and relief in his voice as he sat up straighter then lowered his head.

“Hi sweetie. Gentlemen, a quick word please.” She said getting the two agents to turn around and face her. She pulled them to the side before speaking. “What is the problem here?” she asked.

The slightly shorter agent cleared his throat. “We are to get a second set of test from these two, seeing as they don’t have a temperature like the others but still the raised white blood cell count and ecto-contaminants in their blood.”

“The scientists want another set of blood tests and they want us to recheck the boys temperature seeing as 96.3° F isn’t normal.” Explained the bulky one waving at a tray of instruments on the table beside the teens. “But they are refusing to cooperate.”

Nodding Maddie glanced at Danny and Valeri. “Then I’ll do the test, they can’t refuse me.” She turned back to the agents. “Now go hover over someone else.” She pushed past the two agents and pulled up a chair to sit in front of the two teenagers.

“Um, Hi Mrs Fenton.” Said Valeri. “I didn’t know you worked for the government?”

“Don’t be silly, I’m working with them today, they have a far to narrow view on ecto-entities and contaminants to be sane. Now why don’t the two of you open your mouth and let me take a swab.” She said picking up the things from the tray.

Valeri leaned back in her chair crossing her arms. “No, I did it once and that was enough.”

Nodding Maddie put down the things and dug out her phone from her pocket. “Good thing I got your dad’s number on speed dial then.” She said opening the phone.

“No.” Valeri slapped her hands over the screen. “Don’t dad worked all night, you’ll wake him if you call now.”

“Then work with me here, I don’t want to call your dad later and tell him you are in a coma like the other students.” Said Maddie in an understanding motherly voice.

The girl pulled a face, glanced over at Danny then nodded. “Just don’t call him. He has enough to worry about.

Maddie nodded and put down the phone before picking up the swab and tube again. “Open your mouth.” She said and the girl complied. She moved the swab around the back of Valeri’s mouth before putting the thing in to the plastic test-tube. “Thank you, Danny you to.”

She turned to her son to find him staring at his knees his head held away from her. “Daniel.” She said in a sterner voice reaching out to put a hand under his chin. He jerked away. Sighing Maddie got up from her seat and moved over to him, kneeling down to get eye contact. A bruise colored the right side of his face from that morning when he sleepwalked in to a door. But an even brighter bruise was on his left Jaw and he kept licking a cut on his lip. “Danny.” She said drawing his eye’s to hers. “What happened?” she asked her hands finding his.

“Fell.” He mumbled lowering his eyes. No he hadn’t just fallen, he was ashamed. Ether someone had made him fall or he had been in a fight again.

“Didn’t I teach you how to break a fall?” She asked in a softer tone, he shrugged.

“He fell in to a fist, I don’t think you can break such a fall.” Said the teacher still standing close to them.

“It wasn’t a fist It as an elbow and an accident.” Growled Danny glaring up at the teacher, pulling his hands away from Maddie and digging them in to his pockets.

“As I recall it was a fight, are you going to lie to your mother as well?” He asked turning to Maddie. “Hi I’m the new history teacher Peabody.” He said.

“Maddie Fenton.” She answered. Danny pulled out a pink piece of paper and held it out for his mother to take. Looking at it she shook her head. “Detention on the very first day of school this year.” She sighed straightening seeing the reason. “Fighting in class, with who?”

Stubbornly Danny turned his face away from her to stare out the window instead. “Dash Baxter.” Said the teacher.

Maddie blinked at that. She knew Dash, he had been at her house countless times studying with Jazz and he had actually dropped by shortly before New Year to speak with Danny. The two had studied a whole afternoon in Danny’s room. Letting out a humph, Maddie pocketed the pink detention slip and put her hand under Danny’s jaw, a little harder than she normally did.

He winced when her thumb pressed on the bruise on his jaw. “Look at me Danny.” She ordered. He swallowed and slowly turned to look at her. “Good. Now open your mouth for me.” His eye’s fell, Maddie waited a beat then pulled gently on his jaw. He opened his mouth for her and let her take a swab of the inside of his mouth as well as the back of his throat. Maddie noted that the premolars where a lot sharper and longer than his canines, they might have to get him to a dentist when this was over, sharp teeth’s like that wasn’t good.

“Temperature.” She said putting the swab in a test-tube as well and picking up an ear-thermometer. She took Danny’s temperature first and frowned down on it when the thing had gotten a reading. Danny to her frustration picked up an ice pack that had been lying on the table and put it to the bruise on the side of his face. “So that’s what’s thrown of the thermometer.” She sighed and put it in his other ear.

“Won’t change.” Sighed Danny. And he was right it didn’t, he still had a temperature of 96.3°F.

Noting down the temperature she moved to Valeri who had watched the exchange. The girl didn’t fuss when Maddie took her temperature, 99.9°F. Normal if slightly high. “Alright blood next.” She said and saw Danny pull his arms closer to his chest reminding Maddie of when they dragged him to the doctor when they’d gotten home from spending Christmas with Jack’s family and he’d practically been coughing the whole way home.

They had to drag him to the doctor kicking and coughing, he hadn’t complied until he suddenly found it hard to breathe and had fainted, because he wasn’t getting enough air. Maddie had almost had a heart attack when her son who was almost never sick clutched his chest and then collapsed. It taught him a lesson though and after that he’d stayed calm and done as they’d told him. This time however it would be harder to get him to work with her, he was probably even now thinking up different ways of distracting her.

She went through the procedure of drawing blood from Valeri with the girl only wincing when she stuck the needle through her skin. The sample-tube was almost full when a sudden bang as if someone slamming a hand down on a table made them all jump and turn to see what was happening. The sound of a chair rattling to the floor drew their attention to a scrawny boy who’d hit his head on the desk before falling of his chair. He wasn’t moving, only the slight movement of his chest as he breathed told them that he was still alive.

GIW agents swarmed the teenager like bee’s around honey, someone brought in a stretcher and in a single swooped had taken the kid out of the room. Next they would take him to the gym where he would be put on a bed in the rows of sleeping teens, monitors would be attached to him in order to monitor his breathing and his pulse. More tests would be done and at the end of the day they might come just a bit closer to finding out how to wake the children up.

Sighing Maddie turned back to her work. She finished drawing blood from Valeri and turned to start the fight with Danny… Who wasn’t in his seat anymore.


	8. Chapter 8

The sound of the chess-club president hitting his head on the bench, made Danny jump. He watched as the teen fell to the floor. When the GIW agents swarmed him Danny suddenly realized that no one was watching him. Holding his breath Danny turned invisible.

Hoping the GIW wouldn’t detect him he turned intangible as well and walked out of the classroom through the wall and in to the corridor where he went tangible once more. He looked around for a moment making sure no one was running towards him ready to shoot him down with ecto-guns or the sort.

When no one came at him, Danny turned toward the stair at the entrance hall and ran up it. He could walk but every moment he stayed invisible the likelier it was he would be detected by the GIW. Reaching the computer room Danny phased through the door before dropping the invisibility.

The room was dark, there were no windows, all the lights were of and only one computer screen was on, in the very back of the classroom. “Sam?” Called Danny walking towards the light source. He could hear music playing from a pair of headphones.

Reaching the last row Danny ran to Sam. The goth girl was lying on the floor her headphones hanging over the edge of the table some kind of music program playing on the screen. Kneeling down beside Sam Danny placed two fingers at her neck, feeling for a pulse and at the same time forcing himself to calm down.

Finding a pulse he lifted his hand to put his wrist above her mouth and nose. Her breath was warm on his skin, tickling the hairs on his arm. Letting out a sigh of relief he shook Sam lightly. “Sam wake up.”

She didn’t answer. “No not you to.” He carefully moved his fingers through her hair, prodding her head and neck looking for any sign of injury. There was none, she was simply asleep. Cursing Danny glared up at the computer and the headphones still playing the stupid music, giving him more of an headache every time the guitar played.

He got up and turned off the computer pulling out his phone and Sam’s headphones stuffing them back in to her bag. Swinging the backpack over one shoulder Danny bent down and carefully got an arm around her shoulders and one under her knees. His head throbbed as he lifted her up into his arms and he stayed leaning against the back wall of the classroom for a moment, before he headed toward the door.

Pushing the door open with his back Danny glanced up at the security camera pointed at the door. He might have to get Tucker to fix the recording when he woke up. He walked through the second floor corridors unstopped and got all the way down to the entrance hall before anyone saw him.

A GIW agent in hazmat stopped him as he was turning down the corridor to the gym. His loud booming voice made Danny’s ears block out the sound as his head throbbed with every word he said. He glared up at the man. “She’s sick are you going to help her or not?” He asked.

The agent looked taken aback at the venom in his words but reached for the radio under his suit saying something in that same loud voice. Moments later more people arrived dressed in hazmat suits, none of them wore the black shades as the GIW, so they must be the CDC. They carried a stretcher and a man with a toothbrush mustache told him to put Sam down on it.

Swallowing Danny did. The people busied over her for a moment and when one of them turned to talk to him Danny was already gone. He’d taken advantage of the poor peripheral vision of the suits to get out of sight and turn invisible once more.

Slinking in to the janitors closet Danny sank down to the floor putting his back to the door the backpack landing on the floor beside him. Putting his hands over his ears Danny leaned forward to rest his head against his knees. It didn’t completely block out the noise of the people in the school, he could still hear the hard boots hit the floor outside the closet and people talking but he was alone.

He stayed put in the dark room till he finally opened his eyes and picked up Sam’s backpack. He rummaged around in it till he found her lunchbox. Inside there was an orange and a sandwich that was apparently growing grass. He let the sandwich be and started peeling the orange.

Chewing on the sweet fruit Danny thought of his next move. They knew Nocturn was behind everything and it had something to do with Embers music. So why didn’t he just jump in to the peoples dreams and wake them up. Danny smacked himself on the forehead. He had been about to do that with Tucker but Mr Lancer had walked in before he could go ghost. He should have jumped in to Sam’s dreams when he found her. What had he been thinking.

She needed help, she was unconscious like Tucker, the music was annoying. He rubbed his head, he hadn’t been thinking if he had he would have jumped in to Sam’s dream and asked her what she found out about the music, why it reminded him of gaming with Tucker and made his headache worse.

“Alright Fenton next step.” He said to himself. “Go ghost and jump in to Tucker’s or Sam’s dream.” He answered plopping another orange slice in to his mouth. “What you going to tell mom when she asks why you ran off?” The corner of his mouth turned up. “That I hate blood tests.” He swallowed, “Yeah and get grounded for a week.”

He finished the fruit and glanced at the sandwich. Shaking his head he closed the lunch box and returned it to Sam’s backpack that he shoved in to a corner before getting to his feet’s. “And after this maybe I will stop talking to myself.” He sighed expending the slight effort of will it took to change in to Phantom. “Oh and guy’s in white will likely be firing at me as well.”

Going full on stealth mood, Danny phased invisible through the walls to the closet and flew straight for the gym. Reaching the gym Danny thought he’d taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way and ended up in a hospital. The bleachers had been pulled back against the walls and a half translucent plastic tent had been erected inside the gym. Beds stood in rows surrounded by machines, electrodes where attached to the sleeping occupants, people in hazmat suits walked among them exchanging words with each other.

Danny spotted Tucker and floated down to him phasing through the plastic tent without a problem. He hovered over his friend for a moment, there was electrodes attached to his chest as well as his head, someone had removed his glasses and hat making him look almost naked. “Please have a better dream than last time Tuck.” He said before diving in to his friends head.


	9. Chapter 9

Blank, completely blank. Not a sound, not a word, not even an image. Had he jumped in to the wrong dream, Tucker’s imagination had always treated him to epic romance adventures where he was like a younger more tec version of James Bond. But there was nothing in his head now.

Calling his friends name he couldn’t even hear his own voice. “Okay this is weird. TUCK YOU IN HERE!” he called again without an answer. “And I still have that stupid music in my head.” He sighed rubbing his temples as the guitar started playing.

He frowned, the music wasn’t in his head it was in Tucker’s, he realized looking around for the source. He was met with more vacuum and a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. If Tucker wasn’t anywhere in his head, where was he?

The sinking feeling in his stomach suddenly turned in to a sharp stab of pain. He bent over double as sparks flew at him. Danny flung himself out of Tuckers head with a yelp arms still pressed against his stomach.

“Don’t you try and get away from me GHOST!” Shouted his mom. The whirl of charging ecto-guns drew Danny’s attention to the woman standing beside Tucker’s bed, the glowing Spector-deflector around his waist.

Leveling her gun at Danny Maddie fired. Danny instinctively called up a shield taking the blast on it before he hightailed it out of the gym, glowing ecto-guns firing at him by the GIW.

He flew through walls till he got to a bathroom where he quickly landed and changed back in to human form. The moment he was human again his head felt like someone had taken a sledge hammer to it. He stumbled backward his back hitting the cold tiled wall.

The door to the bathroom slammed open and GIW agent wilding ecto-guns of all sizes shoved their way in to the small bathroom in their bulky hazmat suits making Danny appreciate the one his mom and dad had made him, at least it was easy to move around in.

“WHERE DID HE GO!” asked one of the agents making Danny press his hands against his ears squinting his eyes shut. He lifted one hand from his head and simply pointed up.

There was a lot of shouting as the agents pushed their way out of the bathroom. Danny opened his eyes when he thought they’d left only to find two agents still in the room their guns pointed at him. “Don’t think we are so easily fooled Phantom, possession is the oldest trick in the book.” It was the blocky man from the classroom.

“What?” Asked Danny slightly confused, it didn’t help that red dots danced in front of his eyes.

“Get out of the boy Phantom or we’ll take you both in!” Shouted the second guy.

“What’s going on!” Asked the only person who might make things worse or better. His mom walked in to the bathroom her ecto-gun held by her shoulder and what looked like a smaller version of the Fenton Finder, in her other hand. Her eye’s landed on Danny and then went back to the Fenton Finder. “Again.” She sighed.

“Phantom possessed the kid to try and get away!” Shouted bulky guy making Danny wince.

“Alright.” Said Maddie making Danny stare at her in horror. She pocketed her Fenton Finder and put her gun back in the holster on her hip before picking up a penlight from one of her many pockets.

“Mom?” he asked lowering his hands and putting them against the wall behind him. He could normally tell what sort of mood his mom was in even when she wore her googles and hood but he wasn’t sure he recognized her at the moment.

“Look at me Danny.” She said placing a hand on his chin, her mouth a thin line as she flicked on the penlight, shining it in to his eyes.

The light hurt but at the moment Danny was too scared to look away. “Uh what are you doing?” he asked staring in to the red lenses obscuring his mother’s eyes.

“A simple possession test, Jack calls it the ghost light. Shine it on an invisible ghost and it becomes visible. Shine it in to the eyes of someone overshadowed by a ghost and you’ll see the ghost’s true colored glowing eye’s look back at you.” Her jaw relaxed and she turned off the light. “And your eye’s are as blue as the day you were borne.” She said putting her hands on both sides of his face.

Danny could feel himself relax, he lifted his hands and rubbed at his eyes. “But Phantom disappeared here, he must be possessing the boy.” Said bulky guy again his gun lowered.

“He went up.” Grumbled Danny. The agents cursed and ran out of the room leaving Danny alone with his mom.

She put her hands on his shoulders staring intently in to his eyes till he looked back at her. “Where did you run of to?” She asked her voice hard, he was not on her good side.

‘Out of the frying pan and in to the fire, good job dummy, break eye contact and she’ll know your lying, lie and she’ll know to. Thought Danny. “Truth mom.” He said rubbing at his face.

“Preferably.” She pushed his hair out of his face.

“I just had to be alone, my headache is killing me.” Not a lie, he had wanted to be alone and the migraine was torture.

Brushing his hand’s away from his face Maddie gave him a concerned look, then a smile touched her lips. “You are dehydrated, I should have seen it, it was in the blood work, your electrolytes are low.” Danny gave her a confused look. “It means you need salt and sugar as well as water, it will help your headache. We know that headaches are not part of the symptoms for this virus so it might just be that you haven’t taken care of yourself.”

“Missed breakfast.” Said Danny pointing to the bruise on the right side of his face, getting a soft smile from his mom.

“Yes, come on back to the classroom I’ll get my assistant to bring some aspirin and water for you.” She put a hand on Danny’s back and guided him out of the bathroom. He vaguely noted that it had been the girls bathroom. She stopped a GIW agent and told him to bring her assistant to the physics classroom.

“Since when do you have an assistant?” asked Danny walking in to the classroom before her, he noticed that there were more students missing.

“She’s temporary, I need someone who can fetch me things while I concentrate on my work.” Sighed Maddie pushing Danny back to where Valerie was sitting a bored look on her face.

“Hey.” She said when he once more sat down beside her. “You see the GIW run pass, I heard them shouting about Phantom?”

“Had them pointing a gun at me.” He sighed as his mom sat down and lifted up his arm. But she didn’t bring out the needle instead she put a pressure cuff around his biceps.

“What’d you do?” asked Valeri glancing at him.

“Nothing.” He watched as his mom measured his blood pressure and then took his pulse. “You done?”

She looked up at him that glint in her eye she often had when fooling him. “No I still need your blood sample but you need to drink first.” The door to the classroom opened an a woman with the bird like logo on her hazmat walked in carrying two water bottles and a small white bottle of pills. “Over here London.” Said Maddie getting her assistance attention.

The woman hurried over to them and handed Maddie the water bottles and the pill bottle. “I didn’t find any aspirin.” She said apologetically as Maddie looked at the pill bottle.

“I have some in my bag.” Said Valeri pulling up her backpack and opening a smaller compartment she pulled out a bottle of painkillers. “What you need them fore.”

“Headache.” Sighed Danny taking the bottle from her and opening it he poured out two pills in to his hand before swallowing them. “Thanks.” He said handing the bottle back to her and taking a water bottle from his mom.

She opened the pill bottle and handed Danny one. He took it without asking downing the rest of the water. “Good now give me your arm.” Ordered his mom. Thinking about refusing for a moment he met his mother’s eyes and held out his right arm for her to stick a needle in.


	10. Chapter 10

“Nocturn is behind this but he is using Ember’s new music, finish the game before it’s over.” Muttered Danny to himself. He’d borrowed Valeri’s notebook and written down the words, circling Nocturn and Ember’s name. He’d drawn a line from Nocturn to a bubble with Zzzz in it followed by a line to a bubble that said music that went back to the previous bubble and the circle around Ember’s name. “I still don’t get what she meant.”

Leaning over to look at the paper Valeri turned her head to the side, he had put the notebook at an angle to write more comfortably. “What about the game, it sounds a bit weird that she would say something like that, isn’t it more of a fight than game with you?”

Looking at the word Danny circled it to and drew a line to the bubble with music in it. Something Skulker had said that New-Years eve reminded him of something and he drew another line down where he drew another bubble, writing the word DOOM! Inside it.  
“Isn’t that a bit dark, it isn’t over yet.” Said Valeri giving him a concerned look.

“Before it’s over can mean before the doom, and Doom2 is a game. I remember Skulker saying something about Ember seeing the game we gave to Tecnus and coming to the human world to create some music for it.” He nodded circling the last bubble again, it sort of made sense. “Whenever I heard the music I thought of Gaming with Tucker, We’ve been playing a lot of Doom2 lately and it’s one of the music tracks that plays when you are in battle.”

“All the nerds in school were the first to fall asleep.” Said Valeri continuing on Danny’s trail of thoughts. “It must be why the sports guys are all fine, they haven’t been exposed to the music as much as the nerds.” There was a clattering sound as another student slid out of his chair and to the floor, asleep.

“So we need to log on to the game in order to wake people up.” Said Valeri pulling up her backpack.

“Probably, we should go home to me, mom isn’t there and dad is standing guard outside.” Agreed Danny closing the notebook and handing it back to Valeri.

“You know we aren’t supposed to break quarantine.” She said pushing back her chair.

“And we aren’t supposed to skip school ether, but here we are,” He slid out of his seat taking Valeri’s hand. “Walking through wall’s and breaking rules.” The two backed out through the wall in to the freezing January cold.

Valeri shivered and rubbed her arms, she was only wearing a short skirt and t-shirt. They both sank down to put their backs at the wall and make sure no one saw them. Valeri was the first one to change, her armor creeping out from the glowing bands around her wrists and ankles, covering her head to toe in black tecnic looking armor. “Much better.” She said giving him a look. “Aren’t you cold?”

“Ice core, you have to push me in to ice cold water to make me freeze.” His rings of light appeared around him changing his jeans and t-shirt in to the black hazmat suit, his hair turned as white as the snow and his eye’s glowed a soft neon green. “Or maybe freeze me in a block of ice, I don’t know what it was that cause me to go cold but should be one or the other.”

“You know you are weird right?” Said Valeri jumping up in the air materializing her hoverboard under her feet’s.

“Says the ghost hunter to the ghost.” Danny flew of the ground and the two turned towards the Fenton Works.

“So is ice powers something all ghosts have or is it just special to you and the ghost in pajamas that always want to be friends with everyone?” Asked Valeri standing relaxed on her hoverboard as they flew.

“Why do you ask?” Wondered Danny giving her a suspicious look.

“In case I run in to other ghost and I’m not prepared for them suddenly freezing me.” She answered with a shrug

“It’s rare. Frostbite said that it depends on the ghost, mostly the once who somehow froze themselves in life gets an ice core.” Danny rolled over to fly on his back the cold fresh air slightly lessening his pounding headache.

“In what way did you freeze yourself in life, or was it part of your afterlife life?” Danny felt Valeri’s eyes on him.

He stared up in to the gray sky a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I froze my emotions, I still do. You know how bullies will pick more on you because you get angry or scared. I forced myself to feel nothing when things happened, just to avoid getting bullied.” He glanced over at Valeri, she was staring at him open mouthed. “It doesn’t matter, the cool thing is I got the ice powers thanks to it and now I can freeze the bullies if I ever want to.” He gave her a crooked smile, he would never use his powers like that but it was a fun thought. “Instead of freezing my emotions I can now freeze things around me, hell I froze myself when I first got these powers but I’m already dead so it didn’t kill me.”

Valeri made a face. “I can’t understand how you are taking this whole being dead thing so calmly, like it’s normal for you.” She put her arms around herself. “Maybe I’m still adjusting to knowing that you died but it feels wrong talking about your death with you still here and no one noticing.”

Danny rolled over to face Valeri more comfortably. “It wasn’t easy Val, I was freaking out after the accident, I had powers but no control, I was afraid mom and dad would find out, but I had Sam and Tucker by my side. It’s easy to talk about it now because I know what my powers are for. I may never be an astronaut like I dreamed but I get to be a hero every day.” He smiled at her. “I am alive, I may have died for a moment but I am more alive now than I ever was before.”

She gave him a small smile in respond. “You are weird Fenton. But in a good way.”

“I take that as a complement.” He said even if he didn’t know if it was meant as one. They came up on the Fenton Works and he put his hand on Valeri’s shoulder turning them both intangible as they flew in to his bedroom.

Landing on his bedroom floor Danny changed back to his human form and sat down in front of his computer turning it on. He could see Valeri’s armor retract in in to the bands out of the corner of his eyes. She walked up to him leaning against the back of his chair. “Turn off the sound or we might fall asleep as well.” She said.

Picking up an old pair of headphones Danny plugged them in and turned off the sound when the computer had started. He had given up on coming up with new passwords for his computer after Tucker hacked it in less than a minute and it was just easier to keep secret files on usb-drives rather than the computer. The computer opened up to his dashboard showing an image of earth he’d taken from space.

“How are we going to do this?” Asked Valeri. “It’s not like you can just log on and everyone will be there and we can just tell them to wake up, right.”

Danny started up the game. “Maybe, if it was Tecnus it might be that simple.” The game started logging in Danny automatically. He pressed a fleek to see who was online. “Okay Sam and Tucker are online as well as some of the geeks I’m friends with in Doom.” He said.

“That means we can wake them up right.” Valeri reached over Danny and typed in to the chat.

They waited for a response but it never came. “I don’t think that works. Last time I had to jump in to peoples dreams and scare them to wake them up.” He picked up his controller and went online loading in to the last place he saved.

“Wow level 10 I’m 13 and have played this game less than you.” Noted Valeri.

“No backseat gaming please, besides I haven’t played much since it came out, most of my levels I got this Christmas when I was sick.” He said pulling up the map and flicking around till he could see where in Doom his friends were. “Tucker is closest, he is on the moon-base.”

“Are you fast traveling, you are only on Mars you can easily travel to the moon-base with a space ship.” Said Valeri when Danny pressed to fast travel.

“Backseat gaming.” Sighed Danny moving his avatar around on the moon-base till he found Tucker. He pressed the chat button and blinked when Tucker’s avatar disappeared. “The fuck.”

“Try someone else.” Suggested Valeri. Danny did, and every player he tried to interact with glitched out or disappeared. “But they are interacting.” Said Valeri pointing at two avatars who were in a conversation.

Danny glanced at the headphones. “Shared dreaming.” He said, when Valeri gave him a confused look he went on. “When we defeated Nocturn the first time I took Sam with me in to his dream, we were essentially having the same dream.” He nodded at the two talking in the game. “They must be sharing the same dream that’s how they are communicating.”

“So you are saying that everyone asleep is sharing a dream inside this game, that sounds like some inception. How are we getting them out?” She summarized.

Picking up the headphones Danny put them on. “I’ll go in the same way they did and wake everyone up.”

“And if you get stuck what then?” Asked Valeri crossing her arms over her chest.

“Then feel free to zap me with your weapons, that’s a shock that’ll wake me up.” He turned on the sound and fast traveled to an arena where the battle music was playing. His head throbbed as soon as the music came on. Rubbing his head he narrowed his eye’s concentrating on the game trying to ignore the darkness that was creeping in at the corners of his eye’s.

“Hey what if that doesn’t work what will I do then?” Asked Valeri watching over Danny’s shoulder as he played through a target practice round. She poked his headphones when he didn’t respond. “You still awake?” She asked then her eye’s landed on the controller he held loosely in his hands. He wasn’t pressing any buttons or moving his fingers at all.

Slowly Valeri turned Danny around and startled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my sky-blue promarker ran out but i think the art still looks alrigt. Feel free to comment I love hearing from my readers ^^


	11. Chapter 11

“Hey 07OverlordTucker to SpacePhantom04, are you helping me with this comet chase or not?” Asked Tucker through their game chat.

Blinking Danny looked around, he was standing on the moon-base in front of the space port, the same spot where he had met Tucker earlier. “Uh yeah I’ll help you.” Said Danny rubbing his face, what had he been thinking.

“You got hit by a ghost earlier or something?” Asked Tucker leading the way towards a small space craft.

“Na just tired, you know living on four hours of sleep a day isn’t the best thing. What mission are we doing?” He asked pulling up his quest list.

“Chasing a comet. It’s the one when you have to take some scientific readings for an astronomer so he can help upgrade your spaceships engine. It will only improve the fuel efficiency by 4% but worth it to get to the next galaxy faster.” Finding the side quest in his quest-bar, Danny pressed it and the space ship they were heading for light up. “You take the pilot seat and I’ll do the data readings alright.”

 

The spacecraft scraped loudly against the comet. “Hey watch where you are flying Danny!” Shouted Tucker through the intercom.

“It’s just a scrape, we aren’t losing structural integrity and you don’t want me to fly in to that old satellite do you.” Yawned Danny adjusting their heading so as not to scrape against the comet again.

“Are you doing inventory management at the same time as you are flying?” Asked Tucker appearing on the view screen to Danny’s right.

“I have a lot of junk, have to do this sometime.” Danny scrolled through his inventory.

“You are supposed to be flying this thing, not crashing it.” Shouted Tucker as Danny avoided another left over rust bucket from the space race.

“Relax I can fly the space simulator in my sleep this thing I hardly have to concentrate to fly. Do you think I should save my beginning armor and sell it later or just throw it in to a convertor and get fuel cells for it?” He asked lowering their space craft to get underneath the comet.

“This is a level 21 flight mission and you call it easy, What’s your level at? And yes throw that old thing away” Asked Tucker moving his fingers over the keys to his controls.

“10 but this could be a beginner flight instruction that’s how hard it is.” He threw the armor in the converter freeing up more space.

“If you nerds are done arguing over some comet chasing side-quest, would you mind joining me and Sir Lancelot at Castle Doom we are raiding it.” Said Sam dryly appearing on Danny’s left screen.

“Hey that’s the main story line, you promised we do it together!” Shouted Tucker. Danny increased their speed so as to avoid more space debree. “Wow slow down or we’ll get out of range.”

“Do you want to get pummeled by sputnik or be just within range?” Asked Danny throwing away more junk in his inventory. “Let us finish this quest and we’ll join you and Sir Lancelot.”

“How much longer is your quest going to take, if it takes too long me and Lancelot will start without you.” Argued Sam crossing her arms over her very armored chest.

“Not long, If a certain Space nerd can hold us steady long enough for me to get the readings then we can be on our way.” Tuckers fingers were flying over his controls as he talked. Danny knew that no matter how much he moved the ship around Tucker’s mad computer skills would get the job done.

“Alright, I give you five mine then we storm the gates.” Said Sam before disappearing from Danny’s screen.

“Bet we can finish this in two.” Said Danny putting down his inventory menu.

“Bet it will be done in one.” Agreed Tucker.

 

It was a bit weird, Danny hadn’t noticed the tingling sensation as he fast travelled before. It sort of made the whole transporter beam idea, (that was a total rip off of Star Trek) seem a bit more realistic. He and Tucker stepped of the transporter pad and looked around.

Castle Doom reminded Danny a lot of the castles and forts that floated around in The Ghost Zone on small islands of their own. Only whoever had designed Castle Doom had definitely been inspired by the final level of the original game. It was dark, lots of purple, flying islands with remnants of trees where the bodies of the fallen hung, and everything had a tecnih feel to it.

“What took you so long?” asked Sam getting up from the little chair she’d been sitting on. For some reason there was a small garden table with matching chairs and a tea-set on it, standing in front of the gates to the Castle.

“Hey, nice to see you to, got any more of those cucumber sandwiches, I’m starving.” Answered Tucker sarcastically walking over to Sam.

“Aye Good Sir there’s plenty more, eat up and let the battle commence.” Said the person sitting on the other chair by the table. He was a warrior class Paladin by the looks of his avatar, the chest and shoulders were too large for his tiny waist but that could be because of the armor, a large claymore was strapped to his back, and he had thick black flowing hair and a short beard.

“Hey Mr Lancer.” Said Danny recognizing the teacher. “What you doing here?”

Tucker who had began eating choked and stared at the Paladin. “Momomer memer.” He said his mouth full.

Sighing Lancer poured Tucker a cup of tea. “That’s very perceptive of you Mr Fenton, or do you want me to call you SpacePhantom04?”

Shrugging Danny walked over to stand beside Sam. Something was wrong here but he couldn’t tell what. “Phantom is good.” Sighed Danny, it was what he asked everyone in Doom to call him seeing as people often mispronounced Fenton and he didn’t want people he wasn’t friends with to call him Danny.

“And here I thought it was going to take you forever to figure out who Lancelot was.” Said Sam a wide smile on her face. Her avatar was beefier than Lancers, she had the high level armor that did not make her female avatar look like a stripper and the layers of weapons she wore could outclass even Skulker.

“I figured sense he fell asleep in class he must be playing the game.” Said Danny, his avatar was head and shoulder shorter than Sam’s.

“Come again?” Asked Lancer giving Danny a confused look.

Danny frowned, had he said something that they didn’t understand. “You fell asleep in class Mr Lancer, and everyone asleep is playing…” he trailed of. What was he saying. “You know just forget I said anything, should we go in?” He said but there was something nagging him about the whole thing, it wasn’t right.

“Alright, Me and Lancelot go first, you two are support, Tucker you make sure we don’t walk in to any traps and Danny you take out anyone we miss. Sounds good?” Said Sam. They all agreed and Lancer pocketed the whole tea-set, table, chairs everything.

 

The pain was real, how could something so small hurt so much. Danny pulled out the glitch arrow from his shoulder and dodged as the nightmare goon tried to cut his head off. Shifting his balance Danny landed a kick on the goon sending it stumbling backwards in to Lancer who made quick work of it with his claymore. “You alright Phantom?” he asked pronouncing the name with a degree of sarcasm only people in Amity Park had.

Straightening Danny looked at his shoulder, It was glitching and green goo bleed from the wound. “This isn’t real.” He said poking the glitch.

“Corse it’s not real it’s a game, heads up we got incoming.” Danny turned around in time to dodge a thrown javelin. Lancer cut it down midair and pulled out a gun firing and hitting the nightmare goon square in the chest making it dissolve. “How’s it going on your end Chaos?” he asked swinging his sword at a goon Danny pushed his way.

“Only small fry here, Tuck how’s the door coming?” Asked Sam, she was standing at the other end of the corridor fending of goon’s without breaking a sweat.

“It’s a ten letter passcode, Sam, It’s going to take time to hack this.” Said Tucker absently, sitting in front of a security gate to the first checkpoint, laptop in his lap and fingers flying over the key’s.

Rolling under a goon’s strike Danny got his daggers in to it and with a twist of his hips got the sand goon prone on the ground. Stabbing his daggers in the spot where the heart should be the goon dissolved. “Dodge.” Warned Lancer swinging his sword over Danny’s head.

Feeling the sword cut his hair Danny rolled to the side and flung a dagger at the oncoming enemy. “I should be standing behind you and let you do all the work.” He said checking the length of his hair, that was a bit shorter.

“You need the XP Phantom, a level 10 isn’t going to last long in this castle. Besides you don’t bring knives to sword fights.” Lancer slashed two goons in half.

“My character is a thief and a pilot. I am the one who jumps around in the shadows and back-stabs the enemy, I don’t go headfirst in to a sword fight, that’s a guarantee for instant Death.” The word sounded odd in Danny’s ears, as if it had some meaning. He couldn’t die in the game, he would just respawn, he had just used the easiest word to describe it. “besides you brought a gun to a swordfight.”

A loud mechanical sound of gears being turned and air moving through pipes made them all turn to Tucker. “Open Sesami. Come on we have the checkpoint!”

Flinging himself at the goon with his dagger Danny sliced it open then made a dash for the door gliding under another one of Lancers wide swings with his claymore. Tucker was standing at the gate pointing his gun at the goons coming after them.

The moment they were all in Danny collapsed on to the floor of the safe area. “Man I rather be in gym than this game right now.” He gasped Tucker sitting down beside him.

“I hear you man, my fingers are hurting from all the hard work.” Tucker pulled at his fingers making them pop. “But hey look at it this way, you are now a level 11.”

Lifting his arm to pull up the skill menu Danny pressed the level up button. The moment he’d chosen a skill to level up his body stopped aching and then the button appeared again. “Heh, two levels in one go that hasn’t happened since the first day I played.” He mused choosing another skill to level up.

“That’s why I told you to keep fighting.” Said Lancer sitting down on the floor as well.

Joining them Sam pulled out her health potions and handed one to Lancer and another to Tucker. “So what’s our next strategy, this one worked out pretty well but I don’t think we can count on the goons being so week after this checkpoint.”

“You right, logic dictates that things will get harder the deeper we go until we meet Lord Nocturn and defeats him.” Agreed Lancer cleaning his claymore.

“What did you say?” asked Danny sitting up.

“Things are going to get harder till we get to the boss fight.” Said Lancer giving Danny an raised eyebrow.

“No, You said Nocturn, and if I’m not mistaken that was his Nightmare goons out there.” Things suddenly seemed to clear, he wasn’t sitting in front of his computer playing, he was inside the game, why else would the wound to his shoulder cause him pain. “We are in the game.”

Everyone stared at him as if he was crazy. “Did some ghost hit you too hard on the head this time, Danny? We are just playing Doom and who the hell is Nocturn?” Said Tucker getting a glare from Sam.

“Lancer just said, Nocturn is the boss of this game, you know the ghost of dreams, he had a bunch of sand goons to do his bidding.” Explained Danny looking from Tucker to Sam and back again.

“We don’t know a Nucturn, It was probably just a slip of the tongue from Lancer right?” Said Sam looking over at their teacher.

The man shrugged. “Indeed slip of the tongue. Honestly Fenton are you asleep in front of your computer?”

Danny blinked at Lancer, “Yes I am. That’s how I got here.”

“Gee man I know you said you could fly the space simulator in your sleep but I didn’t think you meant literary. Try and concentrate here we are raiding the hardest level in Doom, only the try hard nerds do this alone.” Tucker gave Danny a friendly shove on the shoulder before finishing his potion.

“Where are your computer screens?” Asked Danny staring at Sam intently, She could always separate herself from fantasy better than Tucker who often got lost in his gaming. “Where are your keyboards, speakers, headphones, computers, what time is it.”

“Seven in the evening.” “Ten o’clock.” “Don’t know.” Said the three answering only his question about the time. They looked at each other a bit confused.

“How do you know that?” Asked Danny looking at Lancer and Tucker who were the only once that had answered the question. “Last I checked it was past one pm.”

Scratching his chin Lancer looked off in the distance. “Because I always play for an hour at seven, just to relax from a days hard work.” He said looking down on his claymore.

“I’m guessing, we said we’d get to getter and play tonight right.” Said Tucker adjusting his glasses.

“But we didn’t.” Said Sam her eye’s fixed on Danny. “What is going on here?” she asked looking around. “My parents haven’t come in once under this session to tell me to stop playing and do something productive with my life.”

Standing on his knees to be on eyelevel with Sam Danny stared in to her purple eyes. “What’s the last thing you remember before going online today?” He asked and then turned to the others. “What happened after first period, can any of you remember that?”

“Can you?” Asked Tucker his arms crossed.

Narrowing his eye’s Danny shrugged, no he couldn’t, he knew there had been a first period, he’d been late, he knew there hadn’t been a second one and he still had a headache. “Music.” Said Sam drawing everyone’s attention. She had her eyes closed and was tapping her finger against her armor, keeping a beat.

“Yes, I remember music, but what has this got to do with raiding the castle?” Said Lancer.

“Nothing, everything. We are stuck in a dream game because of Nocturn, that’s why it hurts when we get hit.” Danny saw the light that had sparked for a moment in Lancer’s eyes die.

“Of course it hurts when you get hit that’s the point, you shouldn’t want to get hit.” He went back to cleaning his shining Claymore.

“Man maybe you should wake up, we aren’t trapped in this game, we are just playing, thou technically we are trapped in this room till we decide to go on and then get attacked by more goons but who cares about that.” Said Tucker pulling up his inventory menu.

“Sam.” Said Danny turning to her.

She was staring at her hands, then she looked up at him fire in her eyes. “Prove it.” She challenged.

He had been proving it but they were all ignoring facts, she was ignoring the obvious. How was he going to wake them up if they didn’t even know they were asleep, how had he woken them up the first time? Danny’s eye’s hardened and he stepped forward in to Sam’s personal space.


	12. Chapter 12

The phone in Maddie’s pocket buzzed. She put down the test tube she was holding and dug up the phone glancing at the screen. Jack had answered her text. She tapped the message and got a long list of components and the amount of them. She sat down at one of the desks and picked up the blood sample report 1171.

Flipping it open to the first page she started comparing the numbers. The red cells count was a bit lower but otherwise was everything the same. No not everything, the amount of ecto-contaminants that had been in the list Jack sent her was much higher than the one in the report. That meant Danny wasn’t sick, the traces they found in his blood came from an earlier contamination and was already leaving his system.

Letting out a sigh Maddie glanced over at the computer that was analyzing the latest blood sample she’d taken. It never hurt to be thorough, she thought and got up to continue her experiments as she waited for the computer to finish its work. She picked up the test tube she’d put down moments earlier and stared at the sand in the bottom. Everything from basic to acidic had failed to do the trick.

She put down the test tube again and headed for the door. The agent outside of her classroom gave her a questioning look. “Do you need anything?” he asked. Maddie had been sending London to fetch her whatever she needed, but when the girls stomach started growling Maddie had sent her to get something to eat, the girl was no use to her hungry.

“Yes.” Said Maddie and walked in the direction of the gym. She had been there before looking for Danny after he snuck out of the classroom, but instead she’d found Phantom. He had hovered over Tucker for a moment before diving in to the boy. Maddie had been the first to react, removing the Spector deflector from her waist. She’d gotten it around her son’s best friend as the GIW agents swarmed the room. She’d charged up the power output of the belt and a moment later Phantom had plunged himself out of Tucker in to the air.

She remembered the pained look on Phantom’s face, glad that the Spector deflector had hurt him and not the sleeping boy. Opening the door to the gym Maddie’s ears was met with the sound of ringing alarms. Her eye’s turned to the bed Tucker occupied but he was still sound asleep, the Spector deflector glowing around his waist.

Walking in she saw a group of doctors and nurses standing around one of the kids that had been brought in more recently. Staying at a distance Maddie watched them work. The child’s heart had stopped and the doctors was doing what they could to get it beating again.

Fortunately they only had to shock the kid once to get his heart beating, but that was a scare for them and Maddie watched as they checked the kids vitals before deciding to move him to another part of the gym. One of the nurses that had stood close to the action walked over to a chair at a desk and sat down.

Maddie moved over to the nurse, a man with a round kind face. “What happened?” she asked. He looked up at her with a tired look on his face.

“Don’t know, we heard the heart-monitor and the kid was in cardiac arrest.” The man looked out over the sea of beds, they had started using the cafeteria as well when there wasn’t enough space in the gym. “I don’t get this, through my experience there has never been any virus that puts children in a coma. This isn’t even a coma they should be awake.”

Maddie nodded leaning on the desk. “This is ghost related, that’s why.” She bit her lower lip. It was ghost related but how she didn’t know. “Did you see anything out of the ordinary before he went in to cardiac arrest?” she asked.

“No, you’d have to ask the doctor.” The nurses eyes were still moving over the sea of beds.

“Thank you.” Said Maddie walking in the direction the doctors had taken the kid. She wondered if the virus attacked the teenagers because of their age, only one teacher had fallen ill, the rest of the adults were fine. She stopped at the center of the room and looked around her.

Teenagers all of them, 14-18 years old, large and small, man and woman, but… She narrowed her eye’s and looked for the familiar red and white jacket the school’s football players wore. There wasn’t one. Taking a closer look Maddie could see that very few of the kids were athletically built, they were ether scrawny, fat or looked like they could use more sunlight.

She walked over to the corner where the doctor that had taken care of the kid’s who’s heart stopped was standing. “Excuse me.” She said getting his attention. “Can you tell me what happened to that kid?” she asked.

The doctor looked her up and down. “You the expert in ghost things.” He said. Maddie nodded. “His heartrate spiked and then he flat lined. That’s it, I can’t explain it yet, we need to know what this virus is doing, how it keeps the kid’s asleep when their brain waves says they should be awake. Hell the readings say they are as active as a football player on the field.”

Maddie nodded she knew all of this already. “Thank you.” She said absently walking back the way she had come, stopping in front of Tucker. He still wore the Spector deflector at full charge. Walking up to him Maddie lowered the energy output on the belt, it would give people a chock of static electricity if it was on full for too long, half charge should still prevent ghosts from taking over him.

Why had Phantom decided to take over Tucker? Of all the people in the gym Phantom had jumped in to Tuckers body, he’d even hovered over him for a moment. Maybe Phantom was behind all of this, the ghost had shown to have powers other ghost didn’t, the ice thing for one.

Turning towards the door Maddie wondered why Phantom had shown up at the school. There wasn’t any ghost around to fight, her Fenton finder would have detected it, like it detected Phantom. Was it possible that Phantom had thought he could fix what was wrong with the students, he always loved to play the hero.

Returning to her classroom Maddie found that the computer had finished analyzing the blood sample. She sat down in front of the computer and opened the file on the desk once more. Her eye’s narrowed as she went through the results.

They were completely different from the result in the file on her desk. Normal red blood cell count, low white blood cell count, his electrolytes were within normal range if a bit low, his glucose was also low. Checking the markers for ecto-contaminants she had to do a retake, they weren’t just a trace amount, it was 7% of the blood sample that had been ectoplasm. The highest amount of ectoplasm she’d seen in a person’s blood was 5% and that was Jazz’s after the ghost bug infected the whole school.

Punching in a command on the computer gave Maddie access to the blood results of the student asleep in the gym. She opened one at random and scrolled through it, High white blood cell count and a 2% ecto-contamination present in the blood. Opening another she found a 3% contamination. After having gone through ten files she could determent that only Danny had as high as 7% contaminant in his blood, the rest never reached over 4.

Leaning back Maddie looked at the file on the table. It had hardly been more than two hours between the two tests. What had changed? “Phantom.” She whispered. The ghost had disappeared and where the Fenton Finder last registered his ecto-signature, she’d found Danny.

Possession, it had to be. The ghost had overshadowed her son in order to get away. But how had e avoided being detected by the Ghost light. Crossing her arms over her chest Maddie stared at a poster someone had put up on one of the classroom walls. What if he wasn’t controlling Danny, just hiding inside of him, would Danny have noticed? No his headache had been bad enough to mask the ghost presence, that might also be the reason the contaminant wasn’t as high as she’d expect a fully possessed person to have.

But how to know if the ghost was still in there. The Ghost light had proven ineffective, the contaminants wouldn’t go away the moment the ghost left him so another blood sample would be useless. The Spector deflector, it would harmlessly force the ghost out of him, all she had to do was put the belt around him and she would know if Phantom was still possessing her son.

Getting up from her seat Maddie heard the door to the classroom open. Looking up she saw her assistant enter. “London, perfect timing.” She said walking over to the young woman. “I need you to collect my Spector deflector, it’s around Tucker’s waist.” She ordered.

The woman blinked at her then her eye’s landed on the file on the table. “Yes, um I was just…” she hesitated her eye’s moving to the beakers on the bench and the sand. “I was just thinking that maybe tears are what will dissolve the ectoplasm sand. But I’ll get your belt for you.” The assistant turned around and walked out the door she’d just come through.

Tears, thought Maddie, water, salt, antibodies and lysozymes. It was worth a try and wouldn’t take long to confirm if London’s hunch had been right. Turning to her set of chemicals Maddie got to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in most of my creative work in both art and writing I thend to have a saying, "the devil is in the details." It's something I think is fun and when people find thoes details I get happy because it will mean my work wasn't for nothing. Hope you've enjoyed the story so far ^^


	13. Chapter 13

The fourth and final checkpoint might have been the hardest to reach. Not only had the nightmare goons gotten tougher but they had also gotten smarter. Danny had gotten the party to change tactics after the second checkpoint, he had to reach Nocturn, and  
defeat him in order to wake everyone up, or that what he recon was the only way to wake people up.

Their tactic had mostly consisted of making a B-line for the checkpoints jumping the loot-chests, and using Sam and Lancer to cut through the lines of defense. They still had to fight, and Danny reached level 16 by the time they stopped at the last checkpoint. At least he wasn’t the only one to level up that time, both Sam and Tucker had gained enough XP to level up.

The run to the fourth checkpoint had Danny playing bodyguard for Tucker as he directed Lancer and Sam as if in a game of Space Invaders, where the attackers always came up with unexpected plans to take them down. Both Lancer and Sam had gone down to below 5hp by the time they reached the checkpoint and were this time the once who fell to the ground exhausted.

“My fingers.” Wined Tucker shaking his hands as he sat down beside Sam. “I rather hack for fun than for my life, hey Danny how about some ice.”

Sitting down in front of his friend Danny took Tucker’s hand’s in his and called ice to them. “How are you doing that?” asked Lancer gulping down on a health potion. “You got sorcery levels too?”

Exchanging a look with Sam Danny shrugged. “I guess.” He said. How was he able to use his ghost powers, this was a game he was asleep. Flexing his fingers Tucker pulled his hands away from Danny.

“Thanks man. You got a new plan for taking on the boss? I don’t want to improvise again like we did with the flying island puzzle, how the hell did you get the timing?” Said Tucker pulling out a potion from his inventory.

Shrugging Danny sat back. “I got a good view of it when I was sent flying by that goon.” He said having taken on a flying goon and somehow managed to survive a fall no human should. “And the rest was simple.” It hadn’t been simple but as long as the three had done as he said when he told them to it had been fine.

“I must say if you applied yourself this well to your school work you might have higher grades.” Said Lancer.

“Give me an A in gaming when we get back then.” Sighed Danny glancing over at Sam. They hadn’t said much to each other after the first checkpoint. He wanted to know if she was angry with him of if they were still friends. His attempt at waking her up had resulted in her pushing him away and him deciding that the only way to wake up was by going through Nocturn.

“You still think we are asleep.” said Sam her eye’s meeting his for the first time since the mistake.

“I know we are.” He said. He’d gotten more and more certain of if for every level they cleared. The nightmare goons hadn’t just gotten smarter, the level’s didn’t match the once he’d seen on playthroughs of the game, they had been designed to challenge him, Nocturn had even thrown him some curveballs that had him thinking on his feet’s.

Letting out a heavy sigh Sam turned to the others. “But what if we don’t wake up when we defeat Nocturn.” Tucker and Lancer both looked at them as if they were talking in code.

“Valeri is still awake, she can get the information to mom or someone that can do something. But defeating Nocturn is the best bet we have of getting out I’m sure of it.” No he wasn’t but what other plan had he, he couldn’t just log out, he’d tried. And restarting had no effect, he was trapped and he didn’t like it.

“Daniel this is a game we can just leave whenever we want to.” Said Lancer getting up and stretching.

“Then do it.” Challenged Danny, getting a confused look from both Tucker and Lancer, the two had been close to agreeing with Danny but every time the light had turned on in their eye’s something had snuffed it out making them convinced that they were still sitting in front of their computers at home. “We are at a checkpoint, you can just log off for a moment and take a snack, god knows I need one.”

The two looked at each other but they just shrugged. “Rather finish the Main quest and get the sweet loot and XP at the end.” Said Tucker getting up.

“The same, when I log off there will be tests to grade and I got time to finish this.” Said Lancer, as always more rooted in reality in his arguments but never able to see the fantasy in front of him.

“Then let’s go.” Sighed Danny getting up.

“Wait no plan, we are fighting the boss here.” Said Tucker staring at his friend.

“The plan is to defeat Nocturn. And don’t die, we still don’t know what happens if we die in the game.” He said exiting through the door to the boss level.

There was a flash and something hard hit Danny in the chest. He wrinkled his nose and looked down, slightly confused. A long black finger the size of his arm was piercing his chest. “The Fuck…”he managed to say before the pain hit him.

 

Sam stared at Danny, he’d gone through the door and stopped the moment he set foot outside a long ink black finger belonging to the huge boss sticking out through his back. “Answer to your question young ghost.” Said the dream ghost lifting Danny up.

“Danny!” screamed Sam running through the door she drew her gun and fired at the Ghost. “Let him go you monster.” She cried, tears burning her eye’s. This couldn’t be real, Danny couldn’t be dead, it was just a game he would respawn, reload, revive.

“Fool, you should have played the game and stayed content.” Sighed Nocturn bringing Danny closer to his clown like face. “Cus if you die in here you die out there.” He mused. Sam’s stomach turned in to knots. No they couldn’t die they were just playing, gaming wasn’t dangerous it was fun and relaxing, an escape from the world out there.

The paladin ran past Sam and leaped in to the air, jumping on holographic disks summoned by Tucker, swinging his claymore at the ghost as he let out a battle cry. “Don’t he’s too strong.” Shouted Sam. They were in Nocturn’s world, he was all powerful here, he controlled everything even their powers.

Danny coughed blood running from his mouth. “How can you kill someone who’s already dead?” He asked through clenched teeth’s. Lancer’s sword sliced in to the ghost but it was like trying to cut sand, the cut just melted together again.

Laughing Nocturn swatted Lancer to the side sending him skirting over the perfect black marble floor towards the edge of the floating island. “I control this world, and when I say you are dead, that means you are dead.” The ghost flicked his hand sending Danny crashing towards the ground. Sam cried and dashed towards him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to say something here but everything I think of is ether irrelevant or spoilers, I guess you have to read next chapter and find out what happens.


	14. Chapter 14

Danny could remember the day he died with such clarity it scared him. The inability to breathe, the pain overwhelming him and the approaching darkness. Being stabbed by Nocturn had the same feeling to it, if he just gave up and accepted his fate he would be at rest. He would be able to sleep, no one would bother him. He would be at peace.

And most likely bored out of his mind, he could never be still, the only reason he was sitting still listening to his teachers in class was because he was too tired to do anything else. He needed the action, the fights, he needed to be the hero, being able to use his powers to save people, it didn’t matter if they hated him for it, he was more alive in those moments than he was at any other time of his life.

‘Heh, take that calculated risk, thought Danny as he crashed towards the ground. Lifting his hand he pressed the level up button and slammed his hand randomly at the skills, completing the 14th level regaining his HP as rings of white light formed around him. “Going Ghost.” He smiled, the rings washing over him flipping the colors of his avatar to black, white and green instead of its original white, black and blue.

Changing his decent in midair Danny flung himself at Nocturn flinging a sphere of ghost power at him. The ghost of dreams wailed as he was hit and backed away pressing a hand to the bleeding wound in his side. “Surprise I’m already dead!” Shouted Danny at him flinging another ghost-ray at Nocturn.

The ghost roared and lifted his hand in to the air. The sand that made up his body obeyed his command and shielded him from the blast before changing form to come down like a wave on the persons on the ground.

Danny dove for Sam, she reached up and grabbed his outstretched hand. Lifting her up Danny saw Tucker back in to the safe zone inside the last checkpoint. He turned to where Lancer was getting up, the man saw the oncoming wave and turning his claymore in his hand he sank it down in to the marble floor anchoring himself before the wave hit.

“Get me up.” Shouted Sam, pulling a bazooka from her back.

Nodding Danny rose higher in to the air swatting away waves and tendrils of sand with frost, his heart pounding in his chest every time he thought one attack went through, but Sam was there and she was strong, she could fight, she could protect herself in here. Her bazooka fired piercing the wall of sand around Nocturn, but it wasn’t strong enough to pierce his body.

“We got incoming goons!” Shouted Tucker from the ground drawing Danny’s attention to the nightmare goons emerging from the sand.

Biting his lip Danny flung up a shield around him and Sam protecting them from Nocturns rain of sharp sand needles. “Tucker! You and Lancer take care of the goons!” he shouted taking a decision. “Sam I’ll distract Nocturn you finish him of.” He said meeting her eye’s.

“My weapons can’t touch him, how am I supposed to finish him of?” she asked waving her useless bazooka.

Danny gave her a smile. “Just do what you can, I got a plan.” He said before throwing her at the dream ghost.

She roared like the warrior she was dropping her bazooka, pulling out more guns from thin air. When Nocturn tried to stop her he found Danny in his way a lance of ice in his hands that pierced through his sandy form.

Laughing Nocturn flung a fistful of power at Danny who dodged. “Have you forgotten Ghost Boy, I draw power from the dreamers. In here I am all powerful.” He flung another wave of power at Danny who deflected it with a shield.

“If you are so powerful how come I’m still alive.” Shouted Danny back weaving through tentacles of sand, freezing them and the goons below as he went. He could see Tucker and Lancer working together holding their own against the goons. Good he didn’t have to worry about them they could fight and defend themselves in this game.

Lashing out Nocturn got a hit on Danny’s side slamming him in to the broken castle above the checkpoint door. The gray sky blinded Danny for a moment as he raised his arms to stop the blast Nocturn sent after him. “You will soon fall in to the eternal sleep Phantom.” Said Nocturn flinging his sand tendrils at him.

Throwing himself away from the wall, Danny narrowly avoided the tendrils and took the chance to fling a handful of ghost-ray at the enemy. “The way you go on, I don’t doubt that, I’m falling asleep just listening to you.”

“Hey that sounds like a teacher.” Shouted Tucker from the ground where he was controlling flying disks with his wrist computer sending them slicing through the goons.

“Watch it, Mr Foley I am right here you know.” Said Lancer swinging his sword onehanded over Tucker’s head taking out another goon.

Flinging his powers at Nocturn Danny smiled, he could see Sam moving behind the ghost unnoticed. “Big difference is, I don’t learn anything from you Nocturn.” He dodged another blow. “And you haven’t learned anything yourself.” He shouted splitting when the ghost tried to slice him in half.

The ghost slashed at the air, deadly energy flying at Danny. He flung his hands up in front of him and shielded himself. His double didn’t, instead it flew straight at Nocturn and the ghost swatted him out of the air. “You think cheap tricks is going to take me down. I am a force of nature.”

“As Is SHE!” Shouted Danny letting the ice in his chest explode out, aiming it at the large target in front of him engulfing the ghost in perfect ice. Sam let out a battle cry and jumped from where she had climbed up on the castle, a huge sledgehammer forming in her hands. It came crashing down on Nocturn an shattered him in to small unimportant pieces.

As Sam smashed the ghost of dreams in to pebbles the goons attacking Tucker and Lancer all came to a halt before dissolving in to sand. Landing in the center of the marbled floor Sam heaved her hammer over her shoulder and looked up at Danny. “So what now?” she asked. “By your logic we should all be waking up now right.”

Putting his feet on the ground Danny heard the satisfying sound of the ice breaking under she soles of his boots. “Yeah well we have to open the galaxy gate.” Said Tucker walking up to Sam. “If you wouldn’t mind you are standing over the key hole.” He said pointing at a glowing spot under Sam’s large boot.

“Oh okay, so it wasn’t just defeating the boss to end the dream. We have to finish the game.” She stepped aside finding herself beside Mr Lancer and Danny. They couldn’t see what Tucker did but the next moment the whole floor light up like the clear starry sky. “Wow.”

“You can say that again.” Said Lancer looking down on the floor.

“I think the real deal look a lot better though.” Said Danny getting a shove from Sam. “Just saying, nothing beat the real sky.” A beam of light shoot up from the center of the floor and Tucker stepped away as the end credits started rolling.

“Huh I guess it’s time to wake up.” Sighed Tucker, “Man I hope my XP will still be there when I wake up, would be a shame if all this was for nothing.”

“So you finally believe me that we are all sleeping.” Said Danny looking from his best friend to his teacher.

“Sure, where are our screens or keyboards.” Said Lancer repeating the arguments Danny had been making all along. “Just one question though before I log off.” Lancer turned to Danny his sharp eye’s glowing. “You are not Daniel are you, Phantom?”

For a moment Danny thought Lancer had figured out his secret, that when he “died” he’d revealed himself. But repeating Lancer’s question in his head Danny relaxed. “I just borrowed Fenton’s account to get access, I guess the comment about an A in Gaming gave me away.” Acting ignorant, as if his transformation and flying around had been normal, might be the best way to get Lancer to believe him.

“Among other things.” He gave Danny a smile and walked over to the light beam. “I guess I should thank you.” He said turning around and taking the last step in to the light. “As much as I like gaming the school is my life.” And with that Lancer had logged out.

“Wow that was simple.” Said Tucker. “Hey what time is it in reality, I’d like to sleep in and raid the rest of the castle before we have to wake up. This mode of gaming is way better than the normal.”

Sighing Danny shrugged. “Don’t know, I’m asleep too remember. But it’s better if you wake up, before the GIW go all nuts in school. You should tell them about the connection to this game as well, or you could just hack it and remove Embers music so no one falls under Nocturn’s sleep again.”

“That’s a lot to do, but leave it to me, I’ll bounce everyone out of her now as well.” Said Tucker turning to the light his keyboard in front of him as he typed out code. “I’m going to miss a this teck.” He sighed before logging out as well, leaving Danny alone with Sam.

“Aren’t you leaving.” Asked Danny afraid to look up in to Sam’s face.

“Sure I’m just going to do one thing first.” Danny chanced a look up at her and found that she was way too close to is face for comfort.

**SpacePhantom04 Logged off**

**Chaos Logged off**

**Servers down for maintenance.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just say that I hate writing fight scene, I might have an image and understanding of what’s happening around the characters but to put it in to words is hard. I hope I didn’t disappoint anyone with this chapter.


	15. Chapter 15

Only once before had Danny experienced something so bizarre as having his consciousness being pulled through dimensions. The moment he logged out of the game he got the feeling like he was being pulled through a tunnel. When the dark gray sky finally came in to focused he found himself laying on his back on a snow-covered roof.

Blinking a glowing red object came flying at him and Danny realized in the last second that it was Valeri. “The Fuck!” He shouted rolling over to his right side a sudden sharp pain flaring up in his right shoulder followed by a sound like crunching snow only inside his body.

Valeri landed feet first where Danny’s chest had been a moment earlier. “You are not getting away from me again.” She growled flinging a kick at his head.

Getting his feet’s under him Danny brought his arms up and blocked her. “What the hell Valeri, It’s me!” He shouted his body protesting the fast movement. The hell was wrong, he felt like he’d actually gone through all the levels of Castle Doom taking the damage on his real body.

Valeri’s eye’s narrowed and then she pulled her leg back standing in front of him her muscles tensing. “Really?” she asked.

“Yes, Why are you attacking me? And why are we on the roof?” He looked around, the Fenton Works were several blocks away almost hidden by buildings towering higher than the Ops center.

“You don’t remember? You attacked me, then flew off without a word.” She said relaxing a bit more, the angry red glow of her armor dimming. Danny shook his head staring at the setting sun behind Valeri. It must be past 5pm for the sun to be that low. “God you really were possessed then.” She sighed sitting down heavily in the thick snow.

“What?” Asked Danny a bit alarmed floating up of the ground as his right leg began cramping. He vaguely noted that he was in ghost form and apart for the discomfort of his right shoulder and leg, there was a piercing pain on the left side of his chest as well that increased when he breathed, broken ribs, he thought.

“It’s sort of a long story.” Valeri began and her helmet retracted letting her heavy curls fall loosely around her shoulders. “I don’t know if you fell asleep or not in front of the computer but when you turned around your eye’s were, well not yours. You get what I mean.”

Nodding to begin with Danny turned it in to a shake of the head, “No I don’t. I was in the game after I put on the headphones, Tucker and Sam can tell you.”

“They are alright then.” She said relief in her voice. “That’s good. I was starting to think I might have to do something drastic. Your Dad tried to join in our fight by the way, but he’s a terrible shot.”

“That’s true. Can you continue the story, start with what you mean my eyes weren’t my own.” Said Danny a knot turning in his belly, there was an odd taste in his mouth. Had he been possessed? What had he done? Had anyone seen him change?

“I mean you looked dead inside Danny, and you didn’t talk, You just got up and when I tried to ask you what was happening you threw the first punch. Then I tried to get an arm-lock on you but you phased through the wall I was using as a support. If your parents ask what happened in the kitchen you should blame it on ghosts by the way.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “We got out before your Dad walked in, you transformed. Out of sight by the way so don’t worry about that. And then I’ve been chasing after you, as has your dad. We lost track of you a couple of times in the cinema and the mall but I don’t think the ghost possessing you did anything harmful. I hope.”

Staring at Valeri Danny forced himself to take in what she had said, to think over what the meaning behind her words were. “I was possessed, Attacked you, trashed the kitchen.”

“That was both of us, I threw you down on the kitchen table and you broke a chair over my armored back.” Clarified Valeri.

Danny stared at her in horror. “Are you alright?” he asked. He was strong even in human form and his parents insisted on metal chairs as they were less flammable.

“I’m fine, the armor took most of the damage, might have pulled a muscle or two.” She gave him a worried look. “I tried to hold back, you weren’t using any ghost ray’s to fight me, but you are still…”

“Freakishly strong.” Provided Danny getting an agreeing nod from Valeri. “So I turned ghost and you and dad have been chasing after me ever since then.” He looked up at the setting sun again. “That’s like four hours, right?”

Nodding Valeri got up. “We should go back to school, people will wonder where we are.”

“Um, Yeah.” Said Danny raking his brain for any form of information. He clearly remembered being in the game, the amazing feeling of immersive gaming, flying a simple space simulator, arguing with Tucker, using the transporter to fast travel, the kiss. His face felt hot as his mind lingered on that memory.

“You coming.” Said Valeri having summoned her hoverboard.

Nodding Danny followed, flying just behind her. He had been in the game, and even if the fight against Nocturn had been short and intense he still remembered it. But he didn’t remember what he had done in the real world. Had he really been possessed? Which of his enemies dared possess him? Didn’t they know he would beat them half way in to their afterlife when he found out. Hell they had possessed him in front of Valeri, The Red Huntress. Danny was suddenly glad Valeri knew his secret, if they had fought like before he might be chained up with an ecto-gun pointed at his face that very moment.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Said Valeri getting Danny out of his thoughts. He met her gaze, she looked exhausted.

“How can you know that, you said you lost track of me twice. What did the ghost that possessed me do then.” He shuddered to think of what the ghost might have gotten him involved in.

Sighing Valeri turned to look ahead once more leaving Danny alone to his thoughts. Not speaking until they reached the school. Where they snuck back in to the physics classroom the same way they’d left.

Having changed back to human form had been horrible. Danny’s aching body seamed to grow heavier and the real need to breathe sent sharp stabs of pain through his body. He noticed that his elbows were scraped and moving his legs he could feel the skin tighten over his knees as well. If he didn’t meet his mom or dad before he got home he could blame the scrapes on him slipping on ice.

At the moment however none of the hazmat dressed people seemed to take notice of the two who’d been gone for four hours. They walked around as they had before, the students who were still awake in the classroom was bored and played on their phones. Mr Peabody had his nose in a book, only looking up now and again to check the time. That was the good thing about being invisible even as a human.

After a while a hazmat clad man walked in and announced that the quarantine was being lifted and that they were going to be allowed to go home soon. At this the students let out a wop and the sleepy quiet that had been in the classroom lifted. Though it was still another hour before they were allowed to leave the school.

Danny decided that he was going to check in on Sam and Tucker before he left. The only reason the quarantine had been lifted must be because the sleepers were waking up. He managed to slip away from his group when they were released from the classroom and limped over to the gym, his right leg was still cramping uncomfortably.

He had almost reached the gym when his mother called his name and Danny froze. He had to act normal, had to make sure she didn’t see the injuries or else she and his dad would never leave him alone again.

“Daniel Jeremy Fenton, where are you going.” Asked his mother coming up behind him. Her voice was sharp, and the use of his full name did not bode well.

“I was just wondering if Sam and Tucker are alright.” He said innocently turning to face her. The gleam in her red googles made him take a step back. Before he could say anything else his mom had gotten in to his personal space and placed her arms around him in a warm embrace, that hurt.

Holding himself very stiffly Danny bit the inside of his mouth keeping himself from letting out any sound of discomfort. He wanted to ask Maddie what had gotten in to her, why she was suddenly hugging him as if he was going to disappear again. Then there was a click and Danny’s eyes widened as the weight of the belt settled in around his hips.

Maddie let go of him and took a step back, her lips a thin line, the oxygen mask she’d worn was gone, a sign that whatever had affected the students weren’t airborne. Staring down on the Spector deflector, that looked almost identical to his utility belt, minus the handy pockets, Danny swallowed hard. “Mom what’s going on?” he asked waiting for the thing to shock him, like it always did.

But the shock never came, his mom’s shoulders relaxed and Danny could see a smile forming on her lips. “Just making sure you are you.” She said stepping closer and putting her arms around Danny again, this time less forceful.

‘That I am me?, thought Danny. Had she known, had she found out. Who had told her, his dad? Valeri? Someone else. Danny’s stomach turned in to a knot as he once more forced down the cry of pain as his mother squeezed him.

Letting out a sigh Maddie held Danny at arm’s length and stared in to his eye’s. Danny had to swallow, he couldn’t tell what his mom was feeling, couldn’t taste any emotions from her. “We are going to have a talk about you disappearing from the classroom twice under a quarantine. Do you understand what trouble you have caused, the scare you gave me when I came by to talk to you.”

Danny hung his head. He had done it again, he had made her worry, scared her. “I’m sorry.” Mumbled Danny biting his lip again.

“You better be. I was worried you had fallen asleep like the others, where did you go? Why did you leave the classroom?” She asked her voice softening a bit, she couldn’t stay angry at him for long.

Pulling out of his mother’s hands Danny stared down at the floor, keeping his mouth shut. What was he supposed to say? The truth was never the answer, she would freak out, and lying was just oto bothersome, he didn’t even know what would be an acceptable answer. “How is Tucker and Sam?” he asked again his eyes drawn to the doors leading to the gym. He had seen people walk in and out, caught a glimpse of people inside, moving and talking.

“They are alright, everyone is awake. Hungry and well rested, we are just running some last checks before releasing them.” Said his mom in her normal gentle voice. Her eyes never left Danny’s bowed head, and they stood in silence for a moment as people still in their hazmat suits walked past them.

“I want you to go home Danny. I have to stay here a bit longer to continue my work, but when I get home we are going to have a talk, is that understood?” She had her mother voice, the one that got Danny out of bed in the morning.

He nodded and fiddled with the belt. “Why did you put this on me?” he asked getting the thing to come off, it tingled slightly in his hands.

“I wanted to make sure Phantom wasn’t overshadowing you.” She reached out and pulled his chin up. “I had to make sure you were you.” She said and gave Danny a soft kiss on the forehead before taking the belt back. “See you at home sweetie.”


	16. Chapter 16

Danny didn’t go home right away. He retrieved his phone from where it still lay in Sam’s bag and spent the next three hours flying high up in the sky texting his friends. They didn’t answer at once but when they did Danny felt a weight lift from his shoulders.

Tucker had, using only his smartphone, managed to hack the Doom2 servers and pull them down for maintenance shortly after he woke up. It turned out that once they were awake more sleepers were waking up as well, unaware of what had happened. The rest of the students all woke up the moment Tucker pulled down the servers.

They were all sent home after the doctors had done a physio on them. Tucker wrote in their chat that he understood what Danny meant when he talked about being suffocated by love. His mom hadn’t left him alone for hours after came home. Sam on the other hand had to fight her parents. They had gotten their family doctors to come over and make sure she was alright. All things considered, having them flee the house might not have been the worst case scenario.

Their conversation was interrupted by the Box-ghost who decided to show up and haunt a poste-office down town. It wasn’t much of a fight, and Danny managed to suck the ghost up in his thermos without his battered body complaining to much.

By 10pm Danny was back at home. His dad was cleaning up the kitchen, fixing the broken table and chair and muttering under his breath about Phantom breaking in an ruining the place when he wasn’t home. As if it would have been alright for Phantom to do it when he was there and could break some chairs and tables himself.

Danny was laying on top of his bedcovers, playing a stupid math game on his phone, an icepack numbing the side of his chest where his broken ribs were. He heard the front door open and close when his mom came home. His dad greeted her and Danny could hear them talk. Maddie was telling him as much as she could about the incident at school and how it was a bit of a mystery how or why the teens had fallen in to such deep sleep to then share the same sort of dream.

Listening to his parents talk about ghosts and mysteries was the most normal thing to have happened that day. He stared at his phone enjoying the normalcy up until the point he heard his mom walk up the stair and he remembered their conversation in school.

Debating for a moment whether he should just pretend to sleep or not Danny decided that he rather just get things over with. How bad could the talk be, it wasn’t like he’d gotten in to any trouble, he’d just disappointed his mom.

When Maddie knocked on his door Danny sighed. “Yeah.” He said looking up from his phone as the door opened. His room was dark, the only source of light was the street light outside his window and the phone in his hands. Maddie Fenton stood in the bright doorway for a moment then pulled down her hood and goggles.

“You awake?” She asked stepping in to Danny’s room. She looked around, “You’ll hurt your eyes if you stare at that thing in the dark.” She said sitting down on the foot of his bed.

“Uh-hu.” Said Danny staring at the screen on his phone without seeing it.

Sighing Maddie put a hand on his phone and pressed the screen down on his chest so as to get a better look of him. Danny didn’t move. “Danny, we need to talk about your behavior today.”

Danny shrugged. What could he say, one thing led to another and in the end no one was hurt except for him and that was fine. “Why did you start a fight with Dash Baxter, aren’t you friends?” He shrugged. No they weren’t friends, they just studied together and knew things about each other that they didn’t want anyone else in school to know of. “Can you please answer me?”

Raising his eyes from his phone to look his mom in the eye’s Danny shrugged again. “What do you want me to say mom, we didn’t fight, it was just an accident and the teacher misunderstanding things.” He said hoping that she would take his side as always.

“And when you disappeared from the classroom twice, was that just an accident?” she asked her fingers gently closing around his.

“I needed space mom, my head was killing me.” He sighed.

“You could have said something instead of making people worry.” Her voice was calm but there was something hard in it. Lowering his eyes he nodded, he could have come up with an excuse but ghosting around was a lot easier and simpler. “How can I make you understand that behaving like this isn’t acceptable, what if you had collapsed like the others, some nearly died today because of this ghost.”

At that Danny’s eyes shot up and he stared at his mother. “What happened?” he asked feeling his heart speed up. Had he been too late to save one of his schoolmates, had someone he knew died?

“Five students went in to cardiac arrest, that means their hearts stopped beating. They were lucky the doctors were close at hand and could get their hearts beating again, but what if that had been you.” She lifted the phone from Danny’s chest. “I’m sorry Danny but until I know I can trust you again there is going to be some changes around here.”

“Are they alright?” asked Danny not really listening to his mom.

“They are fine, they are spending the night at the hospital and will be back to school soon again but that’s not what I want to talk to you about.” She turned hard purple eye’s on Danny. “I’m installing a tracking software on your phone, I want to know where you are at all times. Why you are late for school when you leave in time to catch the bus, where you go when you skip class and don’t try having Tucker or Sam keep the phone for you, I will know if you do and then I might have to do something more drastic.”

Closing his eyes Danny nodded. Fair enough, he could just make a copy fight the fights when he was in school, he had done it before. “Anything else?” he asked thinking of different ways to stay out of trouble. It wouldn’t be hard, he had thought of most of them when he lived at Mrs Oswald’s.

“You’ll text me if you are going somewhere, staying over at a friend’s, coming home late or in trouble. And for good measure I’d like you to make a schedule for your homework so you won’t miss handing it in on time.” She continued. Danny nodded, he was already doing that in one if his notebooks, just to keep ahead of the workload. “How’s your headache?” She asked.

At that Danny blinked. He had been too preoccupied with his whole body hurting that he’d forgotten about the annoying migraine he’d gotten that morning. Running his fingers through his hair Danny gave his mother a soft smile. “Guess I was just dehydrated, the headache is mostly gone.”

Maddie’s eyes hardened “Have you lost time?” she asked and Danny’s heart jumped a beat.

She knew, she knew he’d been overshadowed, did she know by what ghost? How? Biting his lower lip Danny forced down the irrational fear. “That’s why you put the Specter deflector on me before.” He said opening his eyes and looking at her accusingly. “You thought a ghost had possessed me, didn’t your ghost light tell you that I wasn’t?”

Digging in her pocket she brought up the penlight and flicked it on shining it in Danny’s face. He grimaced but didn’t look away. “I did, but there are apparently ways for ghost to circumvent different ways of detection.” She flicked off the light leaving dancing spots in Danny’s vision. “Did you lose time?” she asked again.

“No.” Lied Danny, technically he hadn’t lost time, he’d been in the game. “What makes you think I’ve been possessed Mom?”

Pocketing the penlight again Maddie smiled down on him, it was somehow unnerving. “Your second blood test had more ecto-contaminants than your first. I figured Phantom must have hid in you after we chased him in to the bathroom. You wouldn’t have noticed because of you headache and his eyes didn’t show through yours because he wasn’t overshadowing you. I thought he might have taken you when I couldn’t find you but if you haven’t lost time then that’s not the case.” She got up. “You’ll get your phone back in the morning. Get some sleep there will still be school tomorrow.”

Danny followed his mom with his eyes till she was out of his room and had closed the door behind her. “Well shit.” He could have blamed his disappearing on his alter ego and might have gotten away with just a warning and without his mom tracking his phone, but no he hadn’t. It hadn’t even occurred to him to blame Phantom for making him disappear when it could have been so easy and logical. He sighed glancing over at his alarm clock, 11:03pm, time to patrol.

Rolling out of bed, Danny arranged it to look like he was sleeping under the blankets, before going ghost and flying out his bedroom window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a bit later than usual, it's tecnicaly 45min left of saturday but I'm still late with this chapter. Anyhow hope you enjoy.


	17. Chapter 17

It turned out that the Box-ghost wasn’t the only weak ghost who wanted to pick a fight with Danny that night. There had been rat ghost’s down by the docs, a indistinct ghost gourging himself on an all you can eat buffet and the cook down town and as always the Box-ghost got out of the thermos when Danny was on his way back because of a run in with an ecto-eagle that had been after the rats. It didn’t help that Danny’s whole body protested his fast movements and sent pain coursing through him whenever he moved.

By the time he had gotten them all securely back in to the Ghost-Zone Danny had about ten more minutes before his alarm would go off. It was just as well he skipped sleep that night, who knew if he was going to feel any more rested with his body aching at his every move.

Walking up to his room Danny got a set of clean clothes, kicked the pillows out from under his blanket and turned off the alarm when it rang. He flew over to the bathroom and locked the door behind him.

He tried to undress to get a shower but whenever he raised his arms above his shoulders, they started shaking and hurting. In the end he did the simplest thing and just phased out of his clothes. Catching a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror he understood why he was hurting as much as he was.

Valeri might have held back on the ecto-guns but she hadn’t spared him from her fists or some weapon that left two equally spaced burn marks on his back, belly and just to the right of the scar on his right thigh. His right shoulder was bruised and Danny suspected that it had been dislocated but when he rolled over in the snow he’d somehow gotten it back in to place. That had been luck, it could just as well have damaged his shoulder even more.

There were bruises on the side of his chest telling of the broken ribs. Turning his back to the mirror Danny couldn’t help but whistle. Only when he trained with Jazz had his back been covered in bruises shaped like a size 8 boot print. “That explains the stiffness.” He sighed before stepping in to the shower and turning it on cold.

The shower helped to soothe his aches and he spent some time picking out small pieces of what he suspected was the road from the scrapes on his elbows, palms and knees. He got dressed, having picked an old flannel shirt rather than something that required him to raise his arms and a pair of baggy jeans. His hair still wet he walked down to the kitchen without limping.

The smell of brewing coffee mingled with that of fried eggs, bacon, burning lemon and sour milk. Danny wrinkled his nose as he entered the kitchen. His mom was at the stove, frying eggs and bacon with one hand, and adding something to a bicker filed with bubbling ectoplasm on the next flame. That explained the smell of lemon and sour milk, boiling ectoplasm never smelt good

“…The truly interesting is that they were all in the same dream scape. They all said that they thought they were playing this online computer game.” Danny’s mom was talking about the events of the day before.

“Morning Dann-O, hand me that screwdriver.” Said his father sitting at the kitchen table, what looked like a new weapon being created in front of him. Picking up the screwdriver that was laying on the other side of the table Danny handed it to him.

“You want eggs for breakfast sweetie?” Asked his mom looking over at him from her cooking and science station. A few drops of ectoplasm landed beside the flame and it flared up burning bright white for a moment.

“Eh… not that hungry.” Said Danny getting his mug from the dishwasher and filling it with coffee.

“Alright. Your phone is down in the lab, don’t forget it.” She said turning back to her experiment and food.  “I wonder what sort of ghost sprinkles sand in the kids eye’s and make them share the same dream?” she went on.

“Sound like some version of the Sandman.” Said Jack as Danny walked past him to get a bowl and his cereals. “Did you manage to get a reading of its ecto-signature?”

Putting his breakfast down on the table Danny sat down. “No, it was to faint to get a proper reading. Funny thing is, I don’t think the sand made them fall asleep, some said that they felt sleepy thinking of some music in the game.”

Filling his bowl with cereal and milk Danny stabbed at his breakfast. “I heard they contacted the people in charge of the game and they said that the servers would be down for repair seeing as some hypnotic music had made its way in to the game.” Turning around Maddie put a large portion of egg and bacon on Jack’s plate and a normal portion on hers.

“Well that’s what you get for playing videogames, which one was it, Packman, Space-Invaders, that GTA5 kids play?” Asked his dad picking up a fork and shoving food in to his mouth. He was a sucker for old videogames and had been the one to introduce Danny to gaming.

“I think they called it Doom2 Conquest of the Galaxy.” Maddie’s eyes landed on her son who was stirring his cereals without any apatite. It was weird he hadn’t eaten more than an orange and painkillers the day before, so why wasn’t he hungry now, he’d usually be starving after a full night of ghost chasing  but he wasn’t even that tired. “Aren’t you and your friends playing that game Danny?”

Putting down his spoon Danny picked up his coffee instead, he could always use some coffee. “Sure we’ve already finished it with Mr Lancer the other day.” He said sipping his coffee.

He saw his mom and dad exchange a look, but clearly decided to let the subject drop before they went too far. “Anyhow there is a lot that can be learned from this ghosts power and ability to connect people through dreams. Imagen the potential…” Danny stopped listening and drank his coffee. It tasted off and he wondered if his mom hadn’t accidentally added ectoplasm to the pot, again.

Danny’s stomach turned leaving a sweet and sour taste in his mouth. He put down his coffee and pushed the mug and bowl of cereal away from himself, feeling like he was going to be sick if he tried to eat anything.

Glancing at the kitchen clock Danny got up from the table, his parents being too immersed in their conversation to notice him as he left their company. Retrieving his phone down in the lab, Danny found that it was completely intact and worked when he opened it. With a sigh he pocketed the phone and walked up the stairs.

His parents still chatting away at the table didn’t so much as look in Danny’s direction as he walked past them. They did however jump when the beaker of ectoplasm still on the burner exploded. Instinctively Danny went intangible as his parents dodged down under the table.

“Probably should have finished my experiment before breakfast.” Sighed Maddie rising from where she’d taken cover.

Turning tangible again Danny shook his head as both his parents started cleaning up the mess the explosion had made. He smiled and walked over to the front door, things were back to the way they should be. “I’m going to school.” He said reaching for where his jacket should have hung only to remember that he left it at school the day before, together with his schoolbag.

“Have a good day Sweetie.” Called his mom from the kitchen hearing the front door close behind Danny.


	18. Chapter 18

Walking down the street in the crisp winter morning Danny filled his lungs with cold air and watched as he let out his breath, it had hurt to breathe in that deeply but the cold air dulled the pain a bit. He liked the winter, even if they didn’t often have as much snow as they did this year it was still the best time of the year, excluding Christmas.

He had walked half a block when the blue sports-car pulled up to the sidewalk. Rolling down his window Dash smirked at him, “You forgot something yesterday?” he asked tossing Danny’s jacket out the window at him.

Catching it Danny gave the jock an raised eyebrow. “And you took care of it. I’m touched, What’s the catch?” He said sarcastically. “You didn’t come all this way just to bring me my jacket back did you?” He glared at Dash suspiciously.

Shrugging Dash nodded at the passenger seat where Danny’s backpack sat. “Actually that was what I was thinking of doing but I didn’t catch you before you left.” He tilted his head at Danny shivering. “You want a ride man, you make me feel cold just looking at you.”

Sure Danny was cold, but it was a pleasant chill that was more comfortable than anything else. “Are you feeling alright Dash, You don’t want people to think we are buddies do you?” Said Danny looking around the street. It was nearly empty that early in the morning, only the ones who were going to work were out and about.

“It’s just a friendly offer Faggot, take it or leave it.” Said Dash clearly out of his insult game.

Rolling his shoulders Danny winced having forgotten about the injured shoulder. “If you don’t mind.” Said Danny walking around the car to get to the passenger seat, pushing his backpack to the floor and shivering in the sudden warmth of the car.

Dash got the car rolling again and even though it was a sports-car and teenagers were known to be reckless drivers, Danny found Dash a much better driver than his Dad. That’s saying he obeyed the traffic rules and adapted his driving speed for the slippery roads. “Hey Fen-turd, is that blood on your shirt?” Asked Dash as they stopped at another traffic light. He’d glanced over at Danny and spotted the bloodstain on his shirt.

“Um What?” asked Danny looking down on his shirt, lifting his left arm he spotted the small tare in the shirt and the blood stain blooming out. “Shit didn’t notice that.” He sighed lifting his shirt up to get a better look at the cut on his belly. “Must have been the explosion this morning.” He hissed finding the tiny but sharp piece of glass that had pierced his skin.

“Wow man, what are you doing?” Asked Dash. The car behind them honked his horn impatiently, the light had turned green. Dash had to concentrate on his driving for a moment as Danny pulled out the glass piece still covered in ectoplasm stopping at the next redlight.

“It’s just a scratch.” Said Danny taking the glass shard between his teeth’s so as to have both hands free to fish out his first aid kit from his backpack. “Light’s green again.” He noted when Dash was staring at him.

“You better not leave bloodstains all over my car Fen-turd.” He threatened putting his foot down too hard on the gas pedal, losing his grip on the road with the back wheels. Dash cursed, took a deep breath as the driver behind him put his hand down on the horn. Ignoring the other driver Dash got the car rolling again.

“I won’t.” Said Danny putting duct tape over the cut. “You going to the library after school?” asked Danny once he finished tending his wound.

“Yeah, are you?” he asked flicking Danny a glance spotting bruises on his pale skin that was shortly covered by the flannel shirt.

“Think so. Though I don’t know what homework I’ll have to do, seeing as we got the only one we had done yesterday.” Danny shoved his first aid kit back in to the backpack together with the piece of glass and twisted around for a moment to get the jacket on.

“Heh, that was a crazy day. Too bad they couldn’t cancel school today because of the snow.” Said Dash his eyes on the road once more.

“That would have been nice.” Sighed Danny holding up his cold hands to the warm air that was coming out of the cars AC. “The best we can hope for is that Gym and English gets canceled.”

“Best thing for you maybe, I don’t have anything against Gym.” Dash turned the car on to the last stretch before they reached Casper High. “By the way, yesterday you said that your Goth friend was helping Phantom, Does that mean you know him?”

Reaching down Danny pulled his backpack in to his lap. “No, we don’t, sorry. What I meant was that Sam was using some Fenton gear to try and get a message to Phantom, but I guess he didn’t show.”

“To bad would have been really cool if you did.” Dash pulled in to his normal parking space making the passenger seat side face the gym building.

“Was that why you gave me a ride?” asked Danny opening the car door taking care not to scratch it.

“Partly, just thought you looked cold.” Dash got out on his side. “Besides, we are so early the teachers hasn’t arrived yet.” Dash waved a hand at the nearly empty parking space beside the school. “Don’t bump in to me in school today or I’ll give you a beating.” Said Dash when Danny got out and closed the car door.

“Thanks for the ride, I didn’t know duce bags could drive.” Said Danny walking past Dash towards the entrance to the school just as the first school bus started dumping of students on the street outside.

A snowball hit the back of his head and turning around he saw Dash throw another one. “I’ll get you Fenton!” he shouted and Danny sped up dodging in to the safety of the school.

Smirking Dash brushed of his hands, the twat would still run from him, that was fun. He wondered if giving him a ride that morning was what his mom had meant when she’d told him to act like a normal person to the friends he wanted to keep. Not that he counted Fenton as a friend, the git was annoying but useful, and resourceful. And maybe he knew Phantom, wouldn’t it be great if he could get to meet his hero.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi this moment fitted in her just perfectly, and yes Danny and Dash are “Friends” in some twisted way


	19. Epilog

Danny had managed to get most of the blood out of his shirt before first period began. He surprised himself with staying awake during the slow monotone lecture about human evolution. He was even awake for the next class though used the excuse to go to the bathroom when his ghost sense sent shivers up his spine.

He made a copy of himself that went of to fight the ghost where as he walked back to class wishing all of him could have gone instead of having to be a responsible person taking notes in Geography class. Getting through his next class without any trouble Danny wondered what ghost had attacked when he met up with Sam, Tucker and Valeri for lunch.

“You can’t be serious, You beat the crap out of Danny to help him.” Hiss Sam angrily. They were talking about the events of the day before, having noticed that all of the students who’d called in sick the other day were back in school and had probably been under Nocturn’s sleep as well.

“What would you have done Manson, if he attacked you, just let the ghost hurt you or fight back.” Asked Valeri stabbing at her food. Danny could see purple bruises on her arms, he hadn’t left her unmarked.

“I wouldn’t hurt Danny even if he was possessed.” Growled Sam back drawing a choked laugh from Tucker. “What?” she asked turning hard eyes on him.

Swallowing his mouthful Tucker turned to Sam. “You blasted Danny with a ecto-gun in Chicago last year when The Ripper possessed him, I don’t think you are innocent in any way.” Danny felt a tug in the center of his chest.

“Hypocrite, who are you to judge me if you do the same.” Closing his eye’s Danny felt the copy return to him and for a moment the conversation at the table was lost to him as memories of fighting a sassy diva-ghost at the mall flooded his thoughts. He snickered rubbing his temples as the slight headache began once more. “What so funny?” asked Valeri. None of the others had noticed the copy invisibly merging with him.

Opening his eyes Danny picked up his fork. “Just a ghost with bad puns.” He said poking his lunch again. His friends stared at him and he let out a sigh pushing his food away from himself, he was starting to get hungry, but the thought of eating didn’t sit well with him.

“What ghost?” asked Valeri still glaring at Sam.

“Didn’t catch her name. She was haunting the shopping mall a few blocks away, took care of her.” He had sucked her up in his thermos and flushed her out in to the ghost-zone before returning.

“You were ghost fighting? But you were here in school all the time.” Valeri sounded confused but Danny could see Sam and Tucker understood what he had done.

“Yup, can’t miss class or mom will get mad at me.” He sighed sipping at his water, at least it tasted normal.

“Did something happen between you and your mom?” Asked Sam smacking Tucker’s hand as he tried to take the food of Danny’s plate.

“You can say that again. She’s tracking my phone and wants to know where I am and where I’m going. I’m not that surprised though, she has let a lot slip past. Considering I still have my freedom I can’t complain.” He explained.

“So you are back to the WishingHill trick.” Said Tucker, having named his trick of being in two places at once after the time he used it the most.

“What’s the WishingHill trick?” asked Valeri still confused.

Sam and Tucker exchanged a look with Danny who shrugged. Valeri was part of Team Phantom even if she didn’t know it herself, her help fighting ghost when Danny wasn’t in town had always been appreciated. And her accepting him after she found out his secret had meant something to Danny. “It’s when I duplicate myself and sends a copy out to fight my battles so I can pretend to be where people wants me to be.” He said.

Valeri’s jaw dropped. Smiling Danny pushed his plate over to Tucker who dug in to Danny’s meat. “I think you broke her.” Smirked Sam when Valeri didn’t speak.

“I’m just trying to understand how that works, do you literary split or is it just like a ghost of yourself?” She asked staring at Danny as if he was an alien.

He shrugged and winced at the discomfort shooting down his arm. “It’s hard to explain. Just think of it as the duplication power in Doom. But we don’t know what the other is doing until I remerge.” He rolled his shoulder pushing ice in to it.

“Sounds confusing, why aren’t you using it all the time?” She took a bite of her own bag lunch.

Opening his mouth to talk Sam interrupted him. “Because there are consequences, just like there are consequences to you beating Danny up yesterday, have you even checked the news.” She pulled up her phone and showed them what looked like a Youtube video taken by a shaking camera.

The sound was off but there was no need for it. Phantom was fighting the Red huntress in the video, both grappling and flinging each other in to different buildings and at the same time avoiding ecto-blasts from Jack on the ground.

“Gee, that explains the boot print I found on my back.” Commented Danny seeing the Huntress land a perfect high kick to Phantom’s lower back.

“Yeah I was almost hit by your fathers bad aim there, gee don’t you guys practice with the ecto-guns you make?” Valeri turned back to her food.

“Mom’s got this target practice in the sub-basement, but dad uses it for darts.” Said Danny before looking up at Sam. “I’m not angry because ether of you stopped me from doing something I would regret. I’m grateful that you did what you had to do without killing me.” He turned his glass around in his hands. “Ask yourselves this, knowing what you did back then would you still have done it?”

Both Sam and Valeri looked away from him thinking over the question. “No, people would have died if I didn’t.” Said Sam after a moment.

“Neither would I. I don’t know if people would have died if I didn’t fight you, but I’m sure whatever the ghost that overshadowed you had in mind, you wouldn’t have agreed.” Said Valeri flicking her hair over her shoulder and out of her way.

“Then don’t fight over it alright.” Danny glared at his two friends until they both nodded and changed the conversation topic once more. Letting out a heavy sigh Danny joined in the conversation about the new movie coming out during the spring break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that the stage for more trouble is set. The next one is a short story again it may have importance on the whole plot or it may not I'll upload it a day early because I'm going to my parents place and can't take the computer with internet acces with me, stick around and find out how the next story goes it's called Drivinglesson. And as always send me a comment if you want, I’ll always try and answer.

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of trouble writing this story seeing as I had only planed out some of the moments in my head before I started writing it, and because the next big story is more attractive to plan out. But I hope this will be another fun one for you all to read, and as always leave a comment if you want, I’ll try and reply to everyone.


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